Just One Dream
by OfficerKyle
Summary: The story has come to an end... finally.
1. Just One Nightmare

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of ER. I am just doing this for entertainment. Crichton's a genius. Alrighty then.  
  
A/N: This is a Carby. It's my first one ever, so be nice in your reviews. please review this! Alright, for my sake, Carter is living in his own apartment. If you see any mistakes, please let me know so I can change them. Please keep in mind that I've never seen season six. That's where Dark Sparrow came in... so many props to you! Thanks!!!! This may start off sadly, but I had to twist this a bit so I could write it. Like I said, apologies in advance for mistakes. Review. I'm going to try really hard on this. Sorry the first chapter is kind of short.  
  
Setting the scene: Carter has come back from rehab, but for the sake of the story he is still upset about that night. He's okay with the Fentanyl problem now, but he still has thoughts. Carter has yet to find and confess his love for Abby... I don't care what's going on with the show at this point, this is my fic.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER ONE  
  
Carter woke with a jolt as he bolted upright in his bed, letting out a yell. He panted heavily, his face saddening with every breath. He lay his head on the wall behind his bed, wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead.  
  
"Oh man," he panted, "that was a weird one."  
  
He pushed his blankets off himself, and headed for his refrigerator. He pulled a bottle of water out and pressed it against his face. The moisture from the bottle wet his face and reflected as he stood in front of the light of the refrigerator. Carter twisted the top off, took a sip, and returned the bottle to its place.  
  
He shot a glance at the digital clock in his room after a minute of trying to erase the nightmare from his mind, realizing that it was only two in the morning. Seven more hours of sleepless agony awaited him, and he didn't want to face it. He went downstairs and sat on the front steps of his apartment building, putting his robe on as he went.  
  
The road was silent. Not one engine could be heard, not even the El in the distance. Everything was silent. The silence scared Carter. He pulled his robe tighter to shelter himself from the crisp October air, his breath steaming before him. He treasured the sight. He closed his eyes and imagined his nightmare again...  
  
There he was, on the roof of Cook County. He sat alone on the edge of a chair that had been placed there. There was a crunching of snow from the door sliding open behind him. He thought nothing of it. But fear would soon hit him when he picked up his glass that was on a table in front of him and saw the reflection of the man behind him in the glass. Only in a dream could this happen. It was none other than Paul Sobriki. He would yell for help, and run. But there would be no where to go but off the roof and plunging into the snow below. If only he had seen his reflection in the valentine, he would think when he would wake up. Paul would advance on him, the knife still in hand. A clean knife. It was happening all over again in this dream. He yelled, and finally a face he knew. A hand grabbed Sobriki from around the neck, and brought him down. And he disappeared. No where to be seen. Carter would look up to see his hero. But it wasn't a hero, it was a heroine... for some reason, he saw Abby. Of all people, it was Abby. He didn't understand.  
  
"Why? All I ever wanted was to help people," he sighed to himself. He dropped his head to his hands, tears welling in his eyes. They began to stream warmly on his surprisingly cold face.  
  
"Well, no sense in freezing my ass off about it," he laughed. He stood up, tears running down his cheeks, and went back upstairs, jumping at every creak in the building. Even at the small sounds his own two feet made when they went out of the rhythmic padding on the ground startled him.  
  
After he finally made his way to his room, he unlocked the door as fast as he could, ran in, and bolted it behind him. He went to his bed, where he finally stopped tearing. He inhaled deeply and sighed out. All he wanted was a dream, but when there were no nightmares, it seemed as though he had a dreamless sleep.  
  
Before he fell asleep, a smile stretched across his face. It was one of the first smiles he had made in a long time. The only reason was for his heroine's face. He didn't know why, but he thought of Abby. Abby for some reason changed his fears to jokes, his nightmares to dreams near their finales. He longed to talk to her, but he didn't understand why.  
  
"Thanks," he said to the empty room as he fell asleep. 


	2. When All Your Dreams Come True

:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
Carter stumbled as he made his way to the door of the hospital. The sidewalk had just been frosted over from the suddenly dropped temperatures and had been salted, but there was a thin sheet of ice left that he couldn't get past. After a minute or so of trying not to slip, he gave up. He shoe-skated clumsily along the bumpy layer of ice. When he tried to walk again to get to the door, he flew forward. He grabbed the door handle, swinging himself along with the door into the entrance. A few receptionists turned their heads as the yelling Carter swung in, nearly hanging off the door. His face flushed red in embarrassment as he looked for a face he could laugh with. Of course, Mark!  
  
"Hey Mark!" Carter called, following him to the ER.  
  
"Hey, Carter," he greeted back.  
  
"You guys really have to salt that or something. The emergency doors are clear, right?" Carter asked with concern.  
  
"Yea, those are done first. Man, the frost came early this year."  
  
"You're telling me," Carter said with a yawn.  
  
"You okay?" Mark asked, looking at Carter's face. "You look tired, Carter."  
  
"Uh, yea. I'm fine. Just uh... Just a bad dream," Carter answered, not wanting to talk to anyone in particular about his nightmares.  
  
"Oh, okay." Mark didn't prod. He understood the look on Carter's face.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter had been sitting for about an hour (with nothing to do in that time save for restraining a psychotic woman) when he finally saw the dream- face. He froze when he looked at Abby: something had struck him. A feeling, not an object for once. It was a good feeling, too. He didn't know why, but seeing her made him feel happy and safe.  
  
"Hey Abby!" he called after her, finally moving.  
  
Abby turned around to see the now standing Carter smiling at her.  
  
"Hey Mr. Social, she replied, walking toward him. "Long time to speak."  
  
"Well," Carter started, "I've just needed some time to think, that's all."  
  
"I know," she said understandingly.  
  
Cater searched for something to say. "Oh, well, uh... anyway, I guess I just wanted to say thanks." (That is, if he hadn't already. He wasn't too sure at the moment.)  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Everything," Carter answered with a smile gleaming on his face.  
  
"You're very welcome," she said when she suddenly glanced at her watch. "Oh jeez, I'm really sorry. I have to go. Maybe I'll see you a little later or something."  
  
"Yea," Carter said quietly.  
  
"Bye, Carter!" she called, running down the hall.  
  
"Bye, Abby!" he shouted behind her. He had liked the sound of his name in her voice.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"We need some help over here!"  
  
With a resounding entrance slam of the ER doors, the action had begun.  
  
"Twenty-seven-year-old male, he T-boned an oncoming car. BP's low, poor respiration. We've got the man he hit coming in, ETA three minutes," one of the young paramedics rattled to the surrounding crowd of doctors who understood every word with ease.  
  
Mark and Carter ran to his aide and pulled the gurney from him into the closest trauma room.  
  
"We're going to need some O-neg. ready," Mark called out.  
  
One of the nearby nurses fished out a blood donor's gift, prepared it, and waited for Mark to take it. Meanwhile, Mark was having trouble with the intervenes that he had taken over when he noticed no one else was on it.  
  
"What, no vein?" he asked aloud.  
  
Carter pulled out the man's left arm. He was shocked with a sort of terror with what he saw. He gazed down at the near empty syringe stuck in the man's arm, dropped the appendage, and stepped back, eyes wide.  
  
"No," Carter answered.  
  
They both stared at the problem tool, now realizing just who the root of the situation was. He obviously was shooting up, but why in a car?  
  
"Oh sweet Jesus, not this again," Carter said pleadingly.  
  
"Well, let's get to work!" Mark called. "Carter, we have to do our job. No matter what got the person in here, it's our top priority to save them."  
  
"I know. Trust me, I already know that," Carter said, suddenly remembering the ordeal with the rapist from which he had almost withheld treatment long ago.  
  
Jing-Mei, who had entered the room some time ago, looked at Carter apologetically, even though she did not fully understand.  
  
"If you want to go, I'll get someone to cover you. I'll even do it if I have to," she offered.  
  
"No thanks, Deb. I know what I have to do," Carter answered, ten began an IV with no second thoughts.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Hey Carter," Weaver said, waking him from his blank daydreaming expression.  
  
"Hey," he answered.  
  
"I've been trying to get your attention for the past minute," she informed him.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"Paul's still waiting for you in curtain three."  
  
"What?" Carter almost yelled in horror, followed by holding his breath in fear. The name 'Paul' and 'curtain three' did not go together for him anymore.  
  
"Oh God, Carter, I'm so sorry..." Kerri started, forgetting the name that had haunted Carter for so long. "Paul Smith," she corrected herself sheepishly.  
  
"Oh. Well in that case, it's okay," Carter said, exhaling and finally breathing. He took the chart that she held and walked to curtain three again.  
  
When he first entered the room, Carter stayed close to the entrance, knowing that too much had happened in the room since his last visit. He then walked to the bed slowly, evading any reason to go to the other side... Lucy's side.  
  
"So," Carter said, trying to sound cheerful while reading the chart, "I see you dislocated your right shoulder a week ago, and now you're back because it's really starting to bother you, right?"  
  
The man nodded.  
  
"I also see that you're a weightlifter," he added, looking at the muscular figure in the bed.  
  
The man nodded again.  
  
"Have you been lifting?" Carter asked.  
  
The man nodded a third time, but sheepishly.  
  
"You know you have to give it a rest, it's not going to work like that right away."  
  
The man spoke. "I know, I know. I just needed something to do."  
  
"Well, do something... anything, but don't, use, this, arm," Carter said, enunciating the last four words very clearly. "I'll give you some aspirin and advice, but that's about all I can do. You have to let that shoulder heal."  
  
"Okie dokey," The man agreed whole-heartedly.  
  
"Good," Carter said as he gestured to the nurse. He smacked his head as he left the room and ran his hand down his face.  
  
"Sometimes you just have to wonder," he said to himself.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Jerry looked at the clock from where he stood at the desk. 7:14.  
  
"Oh crap!" he exclaimed.  
  
"What's wrong?" Jing-Mei asked from across the desk.  
  
"Uh, could you wait here for like, two minutes? Just to watch the phone? I mean, I know it's not your job, but could you? Please?" he pleaded.  
  
"Sure, but why?" she asked.  
  
Jerry looked at the clock again. 7:15.  
  
"I was supposed to wake up Carter fifteen minutes ago!" And with that, he darted down the hall.  
  
Jerry whipped open the door to the break room and saw Carter fast asleep.  
  
'Just like a baby,' Jerry thought sarcastically, making himself laugh at the sight in front of him.  
  
He walked over to Carter, who was curled up on two chairs with his white coat lain over him. Jerry placed a hand on Carter's shoulder and shook him just enough that he stirred.  
  
"Carter, time to get up now. I was fifteen minutes late, so come on."  
  
Carter opened his eyes slowly and stretched, pushing the chair that held his feet further away from him.  
  
"Seven fifteen, right Jerry?"  
  
"Yea," he replied, looking a little embarrassed.  
  
"I knew you'd forget."  
  
"I didn't forget! I lost track of time!"  
  
"That's alright," Carter assured him. "Who's at the desk?" he asked.  
  
"Jing-Mei," he answered calmly. Then it hit him that someone who wasn't a receptionist and had better things to do was doing his job. "Oh man, Jing- Mei!" And with that he was running back to the desk.  
  
Carter laughed and remembered that he had about forty-five minutes of free time, so he decided to get some water and sip it on the roof to wake himself with the cool, nighttime, October breeze.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter went out to the chair on the roof, took a seat, and set his water glass down in front of him. Suddenly, a harsh breeze sent a chill down his spine. He heard a crunch of snow behind him and searched unsuccessfully for a reflection in his glass. The cold and ironic fear that resembled his nightmare froze him. When he heard slow, advancing footsteps behind him, he closed his eyes. In an instant, he whirled around to see the advancing person. He then opened his eyes, ready to bear whatever sight lay before him. A total shock shot through him at the figure that stood on the roof in the frosty air, looking down on him. 


	3. Doc's Confessional

:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER THREE  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter had to look twice. It was the face in the nightmare. His face went warm. It really was who he thought it was.  
  
"Hey, Carter," the opposite's voice said in a soft tone.  
  
"Hey. You scared me for a minute there, Abby."  
  
She smiled. "Sorry, I just needed some air."  
  
"I know what you mean," Carter said. It was then that Abby noticed he was shivering from the cold. At the same time, Carter noticed he was still shivering from the fear.  
  
"You look cold," Abby said to him.  
  
"It's actually, uh... It's actually a little more than that," Carter started. "I'll admit, I've been a little paranoid lately."  
  
"Really?" Abby asked, realizing too late that that was a dumb remark. "I mean, you have every right to be," she added hastily.  
  
"Yea, but it's no big deal."  
  
"But you have been acting strange ever since September, are you sure you're all right?"  
  
"Yea," Carter said unconvincingly. "No."  
  
"Well, I have 'til eight. Want to talk to Doctor Lockheart about it?"  
  
Finally, someone to listen to him. Carter's face lit up with joy. They each sat themselves eat the table, Carter now facing the door. And he talked. He told her everything. He told her about the nightmares. Even the details.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
There was a high, quiet, rhythmic beep between Carter and Abby.  
  
"Well, I guess we have to get back to work," Carter said, looking at Abby's blinking watch, then at her eyes.  
  
"Yea, I guess so. You know, I'm really glad you told me about that."  
  
They had, in the past half-hour or more, concluded that the reason Abby was in the dream was because she had helped save him... twice, she had pointed out.  
  
"Well, I had to tell someone," Carter admitted. "It was really taking a toll on my sleep."  
  
"If you ever need to talk about anything, you know you can always come to me," Abby reassured him with a smile.  
  
By now, they were standing in front of the door and shivering. Carter spilled the rest of the water out of his glass childishly onto the frost- covered roof, then looked at Abby.  
  
"Thanks," Carter said as he hugged her warmly.  
  
"No problem," Abby said, hugging him back.  
  
As they silently descended back to the ER, Carter mentally questioned their conclusion. He knew that people just don't dream about each other like that, or at least that was so from his experience. Abby had saved him, but there was something more. Something he couldn't quite pinpoint inside of him.  
  
Abby went left as they entered the ER again. Carter stood where he was and watched her walk away, sad that she had to leave. He had really enjoyed the talk on the rooftop. He brought himself mentally back to the roof as a stupid smile crossed his face. Abby rounded another corner, leaving Carter to stare vacantly into space with the stupid smile.  
  
"You in love with the air?" Mark asked as he walked past Carter, who didn't respond. "Or something else."  
  
"Huh?" Carter asked blankly.  
  
Mark simply laughed and walked away.  
  
'In love with what?' Carter asked himself, trying to figure out if he had really heard the words that had just come out of Mark's mouth. And then something hit him. It hit him like a brick. Since when did Mr. John Carter act like this? Since he fell in love... it had been a long time, but he finally recognized the feeling. It was the best thing he had felt in a long time.  
  
Then he vocalized the reality to himself quietly. "I can't believe it... I love Abby. I love Abby Lockheart," He smiled again and went to check his schedule. It wasn't until later that he realized a small dilemma. The only person he could possibly tell would be a good listener... And that was Abby herself. He had to tell someone else first, man to man or something of the sort, to make sure he was actually going through this. And to his luck, someone did come along.  
  
"Hey Carter!" It was the sound of two voices that rang melodically in his hears.  
  
"Hey Mark, hey Deb," he replied happily.  
  
"We were thinking, since you've been doing a lot lately, you don't really get much time to yourself, and we were wondering..." Jing-Mei started before being cut off by Mark.  
  
"We were wondering if we could just have a night out tonight. We all get off relatively early, so we figured we could go to Doc's or something," Mark put in.  
  
"Just the three of us?" Carter said with a conniving smile.  
  
"Just the three of us," Jing-Mei confirmed.  
  
"All right. But only if you guys let me invite you over to my house," Carter insisted.  
  
"Well, if you *insist*," Mark said, every word dripping with sarcasm. The trio laughed as they walked to the cafeteria to wait for their pagers to ring and pull them back into the chaotic hall that was the ER.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
All the minute hands simultaneously clicked to twelve throughout the emergency room. In three different places, but all at the same time, Mark, Jing-Mei, and Carter looked at the nearest clocks as if the click had been audible over the hum of the small nighttime crowd. And in unison, they spoke... as if telepathy was traveling through the Trio At Cook County.  
  
"Ten o'clock," they all said as they rose and went to their lockers.  
  
"Hey Deb, Hey Mark," Carter greeted.  
  
"Hey Carter," they replied in unison.  
  
They all put their jackets on tightly and headed to the doors, Jing- Mei leading at a quickened pace as they stepped out of a doorway into the frosty air.  
  
As they all stepped out the door, there was a yell from Jing-Mei as she slipped down a handicap ramp. Carter held onto the cold metal of the railing as he slid after her. As she fell back, Carter put an arm around her, breaking her fall.  
  
"I meant to tell you it was..." Carter started when he was interrupted by his own laughter at the sight of Mark, who was using a death grip on the railing, his feet shooting out from under him as he tried to walk.  
  
"Shut up, Carter" Mark scolded lightly with a laugh.  
  
"I meant to tell you it was slippery before."  
  
"I should have known. I mean, the way you flew in the doors today ought to make anyone remember."  
  
"You forgot. You really forgot, didn't you?" Carter asked as he stood straight and continued sliding with no strategic technique but a free fall.  
  
"Well, obviously," Mark said sarcastically.  
  
"No, I mean about telling someone about the frost problem out here."  
  
"No, I was just busy," he defended.  
  
"Yea, you looked real busy, I mean, the way you were twiddling your thumbs in the cafeteria was just so time consuming for you," Jing-Mei put in.  
  
"Yes. Yes it was," Mark answered.  
  
"Come on!" Carter called from the bottom of the ramp. "Let's go get some cocoa or something. I'm freezing my ass off again," he said, laughing. But that would be only the second time he would laugh that night, compared to the many occasions he would find were worth laughing at in the time to come. It felt good to laugh again, and he knew it. He loved it.  
  
There was one small thought running through the back of Carter's mind as the other two came down the ice ramp that was nagging for his attention. He had to tell, but when was the concern. Doc's sounded good. Yes, Doc's was a good place to sit and talk to your friends, he figured as they began to walk. 'Doc's Confessional,' he thought to himself. Then they ran across the road and into the warm wall of air at the legendary Doc Magoo's. 


	4. The Aftereffects Of StandUp Comedy

:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER FOUR  
  
A/N: Once again, for my own good, Carter is living in an apartment by himself. And, contrary to popular belief, I would like to point out that this story is NOT in season seven. I set it between seasons six and seven (Regardless of the time that season seven started.) so I wouldn't have to worry about the seventh season. So, now that everything is cleared out of the way, on with the story.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
The voices on the television blended together as Mark clicked the down-channel button on the remote.  
  
"There is nothing on television on a Friday night in Chicago, is there, Carter?" Mark inquired.  
  
"Mark, it's midnight, and you've only made it through thirty channels. Just keep going......... STOP!" Carter said as a man in back of a microphone on a stage stood in front of a laughing crowd on the television screen.  
  
"What's this?" Marked asked, tilting his head at the screen like some sort of mystified puppy.  
  
"Stand-up comedy," Carter answered, laying down on his couch and putting his head on his arm.  
  
Mark set the remote on the arm of the recliner he had seated himself in and lay back to enjoy the show. There was a high-pitched bell sound from the "kitchen" as they heard a slight muffle that was Jing-Mei rummaging through a cupboard.  
  
"Who wants popcorn?" she asked as she walked in front of the now laughing Mark and Carter.  
  
"Ooh, me me!" Carter shouted childishly through his own hysteric laughter as he reached into the warm, plastic bowl of buttery popcorn.  
  
He followed the bowl with his hand, somehow managing to remain lying down as Jing-Mei sat on the floor with a comforter between Mark's recliner and Carter's place on the couch.  
  
"Get off the floor," Carter ordered Jing-Mei.  
  
"No, I'm fine," she insisted, grimacing as she hit the back of her head on the arm of the couch.  
  
"No, you're not. Come here. And I won't shut up until you do," Carter said as he smiled and moved his feet, curling himself in a ball on the couch. Jing-Mei laughed at the childish position.  
  
"You sure? You don't look very comfortable," she insisted.  
  
"I sleep like this all the time, now sit!" Carter said with a smile.  
  
Jing-Mei smiled and rolled her eyes as she brought the blue popcorn bowl (which was now half-empty thanks to Carter and Mark's naturally big hands) and the comforter with her to the space Carter had made.  
  
"Now," Carter yawned, "isn't that more comfortable than my floor?" he asked, then yawned loudly again.  
  
"You look beat," Mark pointed out.  
  
"You look like a real genius," Carter said sarcastically in reply.  
  
Jing-Mei laughed and agreed whole-heartedly at this comment, even in all its sarcasm.  
  
For another hour, the three of them watched and laughed at the stand- up comics. As the hour droned on endlessly, the three genuine laughs turned into two insanely tired giggles. Any person in their fully alert and right frame of mind who would have walked into the apartment at the time most likely would have warranted a drug search by simply listening to the laughter. However, exhaustion was the only present drug.  
  
Struggling to keep her eyes open, Jing-Mei looked over to Mark, who was having the same problem. He looked back at her.  
  
"I'm so tired, but I don't want to miss a joke," she admitted.  
  
Mark smiled in reply. "Damn comedy networks," he said, making the two of them laugh.  
  
In the blink of an eye, Jing-Mei seemed to be more awake, and so did Mark.  
  
"Say, is Carter still awake over there?" Mark asked, craning his neck to see for himself.  
  
"No, he zonked out a long time ago." She and Mark looked at the peaceful figure of Carter, breathing silently in the midst of his deep sleep. He had tuned onto his right side to face the back of the couch by now, his face buried in his pillow. "You think maybe we should......... oh, I don't know......... put him to bed?" she asked.  
  
"But I don't want to wake him up," Mark said. "And plus, he wooks so cute when he's sweeping!" he then added sarcastically as if he were speaking to a puppy.  
  
"We don't have to," Jing-Mei said with a conniving smile.  
  
Mark groaned. He was too tired to do any physical work. "Oh, fine. But only if you take the feet."  
  
Mark and Jing-Mei forced themselves from their comfortable positions and stood themselves on either end of the couch. Mark ruffled Carter's hair, causing him to turned to his back and swat at the air. When he stopped his mid-sleep attack, Mark curled his arms under Carter's as Jing- Mei curled her arms around his ankles.  
  
"Okay, on my count........." Mark whispered over the hum of the television, then stopped to yawn. "One, two, three."  
  
They hoisted Carter off the couch, his head slumping to one side, and carried him across the apartment to his bed. They placed him gently in the middle of the monstrosity of sheets and blankets, then Jing-Mei pulled a lump of blanket on top of him. As they stood back to see the work they had done, Mark put his hands on his hips, thinking.  
  
He walked over to Carter's bedside and knelt down.  
  
"What are you doing?" Jing-Mei asked confusedly.  
  
"Well, I've heard that you can talk to people in their sleep," Mark said, turning to look her in the eye, as she crossed her arms. "What? You don't like the idea?" Jing-Mei shook her head.  
  
"Dreams are the only part of him we can't disturb, why do you want to try?"  
  
"Oh come on, you know you want to see it. Besides, it'd probably be good to hear a familiar voice."  
  
"But he's been hearing us for the past how many hours," she protested quietly.  
  
"So? He's been having nightmares anyway."  
  
"Oh, fine. But don't do it for too long," Jing-Mei agreed. Mark looked at her, then she ran to the bedside, eager to hear what was going to happen. Mark laughed at her contradiction of her own self.  
  
"Hey, Carter," Mark whispered. "Hey, whatcha doing?"  
  
Carter only moved onto his side in reaction to Mark's voice, but now he was facing Mark.  
  
"Whatcha doing?" he asked again.  
  
Carter groaned and put his face half in his pillow.  
  
"No," he protested slowly and quietly in his sleep.  
  
Mark smiled to Jing-Mei, then turned his attention back to Carter.  
  
"Time to get an idea of who he's with," he whispered to Jing-Mei, almost mutely. "Who's that?" he asked Carter.  
  
"Hi," Carter said again in the sleep-speaking tone.  
  
"To who?" Mark asked.  
  
"Hi Abby," Carter said. Mark and Jing-Mei smiled in a childish excitement at the thought that they were now in their friend's head.  
  
Mark changed his role. "Hi Carter," he said as Abby.  
  
Carter smiled, his face still half hidden by the pillow.  
  
"What are we doing here?" Mark asked.  
  
"Nothin' " Carter replied.  
  
"Why am I here?" Mark asked again.  
  
Carter mumbled. "My friend," he said. That was all that they could understand.  
  
"I'm your friend?" Mark asked.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Carter replied.  
  
"Are you my friend?" Mark asked as they both started to snicker.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Carter said once again.  
  
"Okay," Mark concluded. Nothing more came from Carter. Jing-Mei and Mark suppressed their laughter as best they could until they reached the end of the room. They turned as they heard another muffled voice from Carter.  
  
"What?" Jing-Mei said softly in his direction.  
  
Carter repeated himself. "I love you," he said, then put his face in his pillow.  
  
The two looked at each other and exchanged completely and utterly surprised expressions, then laughed and went back to the television to discuss.  
  
"Do you think he meant that?" Jing-Mei asked in awe.  
  
"Sounded like it to me," Mark said. "I know Carter, and he sounded pretty sure," he added.  
  
"Then I'm not the only one," Jing-Mei said, turning to look at Carter's bedroom door.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
When Carter was sure he heard the door click and saw all light drain from the room save for the moonlight, he rolled onto his back and smiled. He had done himself some good. He had done himself a lot of good.  
  
"Now they know," he whispered to himself. "Now they finally know." He went back to his side and quickly fell asleep. But there was something different this time......... this time, he dreamt. 


	5. Must Just Be Me

:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER FIVE  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"He really said that?" Luka Kovac inquired with his touch of Croatian.  
  
"I don't believe it," said the English voice of Elizabeth Corday.  
  
Mark and Jing-Mei nodded in unison.  
  
"In his sleep, nonetheless, but he said it," Mark reassured them.  
  
The perplexed quad sat around a table in the break room, eating various sandwiches and salads. There was a click at the door and a hush over the four of them as the legendary presence of Abby Lockheart herself came through the doorway. She too, as of now, had a perplexed look.  
  
"Hey... what's up?" she asked to break the silence.  
  
"Nothing," said three different accents simultaneously.  
  
There was still an awkward and eerie silence throughout the room.  
  
"Mind if I join you?" Abby asked as she headed to the refrigerator, pulling out a wad of tinfoil and grabbing a chair.  
  
"Nope, not at all," Mark answered, almost in invitation.  
  
"So..." Jing-Mei started.  
  
"Uh, what did everyone do last night?" Abby asked, making Luka spit-take his water back into his cup.  
  
"Nothing," Elizabeth admitted. For that was what she had done.  
  
"Night shift," Luka said, sustaining a cough.  
  
Jing-Mei looked at Mark.  
  
"Well, Jing-Mei and I went to Doc's with Carter," Mark admitted with no hesitation. Everyone looked at him, although Abby's look was of interest and not of silent accusation.  
  
"Oh, really? I didn't do much," Abby put in.  
  
"Yea, and then we kind of had a sleep-over, or whatever you want to call it," Mark continued. "I'll tell you, Carter sleeps like a baby." Mark wasn't about to tell, but he wanted to push some buttons. He knew it was working when all the looks turned to annoyance.  
  
"I thought you wore those scrubs yesterday," Elizabeth put in for laughs. It worked.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter froze in the hallway when he saw Abby enter the break room door. He decided to make a discreet appearance. As he headed in her direction, he halted to look through the blinds of the interior window to the break room. 'Good,' he thought, seeing a crowd of people around the holders of the nighttime tale.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Everyone froze again as there was another click at the door. It was the rambling man himself, the (as in THEE) John T. Carter.  
  
"Hey guys," Carter said, trying successfully to sound oblivious.  
  
"Hey, we were just having lunch, care to join us?" Elizabeth invited. This was an engraved invitation.  
  
"Sure, I'm starving." Carter went to the refrigerator, then returned with a crumpled paper bag.  
  
There was an awkward silence as he emptied the bag. Everyone was staring at him (most likely, anyway) and he hoped that Abby was one of them.  
  
'No, she doesn't know. I knew it. No one would tell her. You know what? I'll do it. No, wait, I can't. I'M the one who started this, so I obviously can't be the one to end it. Damn it, why do I come up with such stupid plans? Go figure. I finally figure out a plan for the girl to know, but of course she never will! I thought those two were supposed to be loudmouths. Look at Abby, she's clueless,' Carter thought.  
  
The other four, save for Abby, were all thinking the same thing. They should tell. They WANT to tell. It would be best... but Carter would be betrayed. Because he can't help what he does in his sleep. Maybe he didn't mean it, but what if he did? Then they'd be tattling on the naïve Carter.  
  
'Well, they told us. How were we supposed to know they were going to tell us? Now we have to deal with the hell of it all by not telling.' Elizabeth and Luka thought the same thing.  
  
'Why did we have to open our mouths? We should have told Carter first. Go figure.' That was the thought going through Jing-Mei and Mark's minds.  
  
'What the hell is with the silence?' was all that Abby could think of.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Glances were going around the ER. Kerri knew. Luka knew. Elizabeth knew. As did Mark, Jing-Mei, Romano, Benton, all the receptionists, and all the nurses. The only ones that didn't know were the ones who didn't know Carter. And of course Abby... and supposedly Carter. So on the whole, everyone knew. Everyone save for Abby. But Abby was the only one that was supposed to know. That was, of course, the whole idea.  
  
"Someone has to slip it out," Carter told himself as he stood by his locker. "Some... body... has... to... slip... OW!" Between each word came a resounding bang that was the result of Carter redundantly slamming his head into the locker. He stepped back with a hand on his forehead, realizing all to late that it was a bad and masochist idea to slam one's head into a locker door... especially one made of a hard, solid metal. And definitely one with sharp slats of metal that made for the vent at the top, which Carter's head had lined up perfectly with at the time. There were a few definite red lines going across Carter's forehead, one of which was on the verge of bleeding.  
  
"Owies," he complained, seeing his reflection in the mirror of a locker that stood slightly ajar. "Bad move, bad move." He then headed to the door, his eyes closed to bear the pain. When he overestimated the distance between him and the door that stood closed very tightly, another pain came even more suddenly.  
  
"AHH!" Carter cried in agony, which came simultaneously with another resounding bang as he walked headfirst into the glass window of door. As the door moved with a thump, all the heads faced the door to see who was going to come walking out.  
  
"Ooh," a few voices said, looking at Carter who had finally emerged from behind the wooden obstacle while others grimaced, feeling their own foreheads as though they were the ones that had just walked into a door.  
  
Carter's face flushed red at the sight of all the eyes that now lay on him. He closed his eyes again, then realized that was a bad idea. He opened his eyes and walked to the nearest freezer, grabbing an ice pack. He used no towel, just the bare pack on his head.  
  
"I'm such an idiot," Carter told himself.  
  
Just then, Abby approached Carter, looking very worried. There was a hush over those who knew... The Secret.  
  
"Are you all right?" Abby asked him. "You know that hurting yourself doesn't do any good." She laughed at her own comment, a sad thing to do, she knew that, but she laughed slightly anyway. Carter didn't.  
  
"I know, I know."  
  
"You mean, you really did this to yourself?" she asked, now very concerned.  
  
"Well, the first few times."  
  
"Then he walked into a door," one anonymous man shouted from the chairs.  
  
"Yea, thanks," Carter said.  
  
"You what?"  
  
"Yea, I didn't see the door there. Ah, man... you have an aspirin or something?"  
  
"You should have heard it, it was real loud!" the man put in again just to give Abby the mental picture.  
  
"Well, come with me... I'll get you, well, I'll get you something," she offered.  
  
Carter had to accept the offer.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
After Carter was set up with an upright cot and pillow, which Abby had fluffed personally, she walked over to him and sat on the bed with him. Carter also sat, his knees in front of his face, almost blocking his view of her as he held the ice pack on his head.  
  
"You must have hit that door really hard," Abby said to him.  
  
Just then Kerri Weaver stepped in. She gawked slightly at the sight of the two.  
  
"Hey," she started, "do either of you know what happened to the locker room door? There's a crack in the glass... Carter, what happened to you?"  
  
"Don't worry, I'll pay for the damages," he offered.  
  
Kerri could do nothing but laugh as she walked out of the room.  
  
"I guess I did hit really hard," Carter responded to Abby's previous comment. "No wonder I was bleeding," he said, trying to see the gauze on his head. "I didn't know I broke it!" he added shamefully. "I feel so..."  
  
"Bad?" Abby suggested.  
  
"Stupid," Carter corrected.  
  
Abby snickered a bit. "So, I heard you were with Jing-Mei and Mark last night."  
  
"Yea, they stayed over."  
  
"So I heard."  
  
"Jeez, word spreads like wildfire around here," Carter said, trying to see if maybe, just maybe, someone had told her.  
  
"Not really, but have you noticed anything weird today?"  
  
"Like what?" Carter asked anxiously.  
  
"I don't know, everyone's acting really strange."  
  
"I never noticed it," Carter lied.  
  
"Hmm. Well, are you okay here? I have to get back to work."  
  
"Yea, I'm fine." Carter pained to tell. He yearned to tell. He had to tell.  
  
"Okay. I'll come back in a few minutes; I just have to do a few charts. I'll see you later." She bid Carter goodbye as she headed to the door.  
  
Carter nearly kicked himself. "Hey Abby?" Carter called after her almost as the door was closing.  
  
"Yea?" she asked, peering back in with a smile.  
  
"Uh, can I... well, could I... oh, never mind."  
  
"Okay," she replied, shutting the door again. "Something's not right. Something is definitely going on around here. Oh well," she told herself with a sigh. "Must just be me."  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Argh! I missed it again! My window of opportunity! Jesus, see me through this. I suck at this women thing!" Carter scolded himself from behind the closed door. "Must just be me." 


	6. Tables Please Stop Turning

A/N: Ah, the plot thickens! Okay, here we go! I just wanna thank all you guys who have been reading and reviewing. You're keeping me going with this! NOW FOR A LOT OF OVERDUE THANK-YOU'S! Thanks for all the help again, Dark Sparrow. Shutupandlisten: I'm hurrying for ya. Hyperpiper: I'm still going. Nurse Mandi: Thanks! Carbytrekie02: Yes! He dreamt! Yay! IdontWriteIJustRead: Here's a little angst for you (. MommiesGirl: It's not over yet! Abby Lockheart: Yea. CARTERJOHN: Thanks for keeping my hopes up! Higherbeingfriendsfan: I updated, now you update! I love your story, too! Okay, here it goes!  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER SIX  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Carter," a soft voice said in the distance. "Carter, you okay?" It rang from far away, but he could hear it. "Carter," the voice continued.  
  
"What?" he tried to say unsuccessfully. He felt his shoulder shake without his permission.  
  
"John!" the voice called, now less faded and closer to him.  
  
"What?" he said, successfully this time at hearing his own first name, a frequently undone task. He opened his eyes, straining to see in the sudden light. Abby had been calling him and shaking his shoulder.  
  
"Oh good, I was worried that you might have had a concussion or something," she said, exhaling in pure relief.  
  
"No, I'm just a heavy sleeper. I'm surprised I slept that well, actually. You know, considering..." he cut himself off. Abby didn't need an explanation now. She had previously had a rooftop explanation, and that was good enough for her.  
  
She nodded. "Yea, I know. So, how's your, uh... battle wound?" She smiled.  
  
"You mean my self-inflicted mark of idiocy?" That made Abby laugh. "It's pretty good," Carter said, reaching to the moist gauze. He felt around for the ice pack that now lay in his lap. As he touched the gauze, he realized that it was not nearly as good as he had assumed. He inhaled through gritted teeth at the stinging pain in his forehead. "Okay, maybe not. I must've caught a piece of glass or something."  
  
"There was nothing in there, I swear it," Abby pleaded.  
  
"Oh, I know that. You did your job, and very nicely I might add, but I still think I caught a piece of glass from that damn door!" He inhaled through gritted teeth again as he gently took the pressure of his hand away from his head.  
  
"Let me see it," Abby commanded.  
  
"No, it's fine."  
  
"No, I don't think it is. Now let me see it," she commanded again, reaching for the gauze as Carter pulled away like a small child with a brush burn. He dodged from her hand as she reached for the bandage. "Come on, you big baby! Let me see it!" Carter winced as her struggling hand collided with his head.  
  
"Ow! What was that for?" he cried.  
  
"Oh my God, it was an accident! I'm so sorry!"  
  
"Owies," Carter complained for the second time that day.  
  
"Well, you deserved it. Now let... me... see," she insisted sternly.  
  
"Fine," Carter said, reverting back to that child with a brush burn.  
  
Abby removed the bandage to find nothing much but a small scabbed bruise. She smiled at his childishness as she began to change the gauze. "I can't believe it, you really are a big baby."  
  
"What?" Carter asked playfully. "No child in you?"  
  
"That's not true," she said defensively.  
  
"Whatever you say." Carter involuntarily began pushing her tolerance.  
  
"No, really. That's not true," she repeated. "I'm not a baby like you, but I do have that morale left in me."  
  
"Yea, right. Show it to me!" he teased.  
  
"If I did that and neglected your masochism, you'd wind up with an infected head... if you haven't got that already."  
  
"Hey, that wasn't nice."  
  
"Well you're not exactly the pinnacle of kindness yourself," Abby pointed out.  
  
"How so?"  
  
"Well, for one, you don't like to listen."  
  
"I was just kidding around."  
  
"Well look where that got you, another few brain cells lost."  
  
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you weren't laughing."  
  
It was true. Abby had been laughing while struggling to get to Carter's "battle scar". She only smiled in response.  
  
"Thanks again," Carter said. "I really owe you now, don't I?"  
  
"Yea, you betcha," Abby agreed.  
  
"I could buy you something, you know... like maybe lunch tomorrow?" Carter coaxed.  
  
"No, I think I'm coming on a little late for lunch," she said with a frown.  
  
"All right," he moaned. "Try to repay the favor, get turned down... I see how it is."  
  
"Oh, now that... that is NOT true!" Abby laughed again.  
  
Carter gave her that I'm-just-kidding look. He also laughed, listening to her. After a while, they had not an idea as to why they were laughing, but they were. Nobody knew why. But they must have looked like a bunch of nut jobs walking out of a hospital room and laughing like they had just gotten into some nitrous oxide. Carter liked laughing again.  
  
"I have to do this more often," Carter told Abby through a laugh.  
  
"What, give yourself head trauma of some kind? Because I don't think I can handle that," Abby laughed.  
  
"No, not that. I meant laughing," Carter said, smiling a toothy smile. Abby smiled back.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Finally. A break. Abby had not one break the entire day, and it was going on nine o'clock. She went back to the break room, where now, instead of glass stood a custodian next to a plastic sheet that was duct-taped onto what was a makeshift window.  
  
"Carter feels really bad, you know," Abby said to Kerri Weaver as she entered the room. She figured that Weaver should know this fact.  
  
"Physically?" she teased.  
  
"Yes, but I think he wanted you to know that he felt really bad about breaking the door."  
  
"No, just the window," Elizabeth said from the background. Abby hadn't seen her, considering she was behind the refrigerator door.  
  
"He really meant it when he said he would pay it back in full, Kerri," Abby reassured her.  
  
"I hope so," Weaver said jokingly. "Well, I have to go monitor the ER again. Jing-Mei should be in here in a while, so you can tell her about the door prophecies. She doesn't know yet."  
  
"Ooh, sounds like good fun to me!" Elizabeth put in.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter walked down the hall to see three women staggering in front of him and laughing hysterically.  
  
"What's so funny, you guys?" he asked the hilarious-looking trio of positives.  
  
Jing-Mei looked Carter in his chestnut eyes, then switched her gaze to his red forehead, tears almost running down her cheeks. She couldn't hold it in any longer.  
  
"YOU!" she laughed, as the three walked away, leaving Carter to stare into space with a look of utter confusion on his face.  
  
"You confused?" Mark asked as he walked by him, with no response to let him know.  
  
"Huh?" Carter said blankly once again, simply making Mark laugh and walk away.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Trauma, room two! Carter, we need you!" Mark called from down the hall.  
  
"I'm on it," Carter said as he got himself a translucent jacket. He walked down the hall, one of the nurses trailing behind him to tie the loose strands in the back. She kept up with him just enough to get gloves on him as well.  
  
"What's up, guys?" Carter said as he entered the room. Mark had a look of apology on his face as he rang out the situation to Carter... this was the second time he was going to have to say this, and it was not going to be easy.  
  
"Forty-year-old male, stab wound to the chest, vitals are low. Down for twenty." It was with a heavy heart that Mark Greene said this, for he knew that it was not liable that the man was going to live.  
  
Carter looked down at the man. He struggled to breathe, and with every heaving breath, a bit of his brown-black hair moistened. The more he tried to breathe, the more the blackening strands held fast to his face with sweat. His dark brown eyes met Carter's, then went back to focusing on his eyelids as they closed.  
  
"Name?" Carter inquired.  
  
"We're not sure, we just know that it starts with a J. The police arrived on the scene from an anonymous tip, and when they asked for his name, that's all they got," Mark answered.  
  
"Thanks." He turned to the almost anonymous man. "I'm going to help you as much as I can, Jay, I promise. Don't you worry." He knew that "Jay" had heard him when he nodded his head in thanks.  
  
Carter, Mark, and the trauma team toiled over the matter at hand, every minute becoming more valuable, every second becoming the thin lines between life and death. But Carter wasn't about to let death become of this man. He had helped to resuscitate, helped to breathe overall, helped to keep him alive for just a little longer with every step they took. Two times Jay had crashed, and two times they had revived him. But as they say, third time's a charm.  
  
"V-FIB again!" Jing-Mei called from behind the other side of the gurney. It grew more monotonous every time she said it. Once more, the out of rhythm, shrill alarm filled the room as Jay crashed once again. This time, Carter took the internal paddles into his own two hands.  
  
"Charge to three-sixty!" he ordered. The cart beeped to signify its readiness. "CLEAR!" There was no sign of things getting better. Carter glanced at the clock, then quickly shook his head. Mark looked at him, as if to say that there was nothing more to do. "There's still an unsteady rhythm. Charge to three-seventy!" The nurse did as he asked. "CLEAR!" he yelled, with more stress in his voice than ever. Nothing. Now Carter's voice changed to a saddened, shaky call. "Charge it to three-eighty."  
  
The nurse simply looked at him.  
  
"Charge it to three-eighty!" he yelled again.  
  
"Carter, it's hopeless. He's been down for almost fifty minutes now," Mark said sadly.  
  
"There's always hope, Mark. Charge it to three-eighty!"  
  
The nurse did as she was told again. Carter shocked him, praying for life. Nothing.  
  
"Three-ninety!" he shouted, desperation filling his voice. The nurse gave him a look to tell him he was insane. "I know, just do it. Please! THREE- NINETY!" There was a flat line on the EKG ringing in the background. Carter could not bear to hear it. "I promised you, now come on, Jay. CLEAR!" There was still nothing.  
  
"Call it," Mark said, trying not to demand anything.  
  
"We can go to four hundred," Carter insisted, his face reddening with fear that the man would be lost from his grip.  
  
"Call it," Mark said again, this time sternly.  
  
"No, I promised him I would help him as much as I could!" Carter yelled.  
  
"And you kept your promise, you can't do any more!" Mark said back to him. "Now call it."  
  
"I... I can't." Carter said, his hands, now empty, shaking.  
  
"You were in charge at the time," Mark said, realizing all too late that that was the wrong thing to say. "Just call it."  
  
Carter's heart sank as he looked at the clock. "Time of..." he couldn't say it. His head dropped. He couldn't bring himself to say the word.  
  
"Time of death," Mark said for him.  
  
Carter breathed slowly. "Time of," he gulped "death, 22:11." He looked at the lifeless man he had called Jay. He took off his gloves and scrub jacket, threw them aside, and leaned next to him.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said with clenched fists. "Goodbye Jay."  
  
"It's okay, Carter," Mark said to try and calm him down.  
  
Carter sighed and walked out of the room.  
  
When he had made himself a little bit comfortable, leaning against the wall, he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and clasped his hands.  
  
"God forgive me. I couldn't keep my promise." He then dropped his hands and left his eyes closed.  
  
"What's wrong?" A voice said to him, very softly.  
  
"Abby?" He opened his eyes and shook his head.  
  
"You know you can tell me anything," she reassured him.  
  
"I don't want to talk about it," he said to her.  
  
"You sure?" She had no idea about the trauma.  
  
"Abby, now's not the time, okay?" he said sternly.  
  
"What did I do?"  
  
"Nothing, just leave me alone," he said, still stern.  
  
"Okay..." she agreed, but didn't move. She wanted to change the topic.  
  
"Could you stop being so damn nosey?" he nearly shouted to her.  
  
Abby stepped back, and looked him in the eyes. They were welling with tears. She didn't know what she had done, but she had triggered something.  
  
"Leave me alone!" Carter said once more, enunciating each word. He put his head back on the wall, closing his eyes. He heard her feet pad away, then looked at her. She walked away with a very sadly confused look on her face.  
  
She sat behind the front desk, looking very depressed that she had just caused Carter to yell out, something he rarely ever does, but she didn't know why.  
  
His eyes met hers from down the hall, but she quickly looked away, turning her head completely to somebody else. Carter knew she was afraid to look at him.  
  
"What have I done?" Carter whispered. 


	7. Bright Lights Black Ice

:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER SEVEN  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
A/N: Okay, first of all, I want to tell you guys that your support is awesome! Thanks SO much! If it weren't for you guys, this Carby probably wouldn't exist... well, maybe the first chapter. But remember; now Abby is afraid to talk to Carter because no one has told her why he yelled at her.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter stared out at the Chicago night skyline. He had his back propped against the brick ledge of the roof with a pillow from the ER supporting his head. It was the only thing holding his head up. He could barely hold it there, a sign that this night was a really bad night.  
  
"Why the hell did I do that?" Carter asked the vacant and cold air, as if it had an answer. His shift had been over for about an hour, and so had Abby's. The only difference was that she got out faster than he did. Yet he remained on the roof, shaking from the cold and frustration of the night.  
  
The only thing that could explain his behavior was his failure, and Carter knew that. But he didn't want to think of it. He kept seeing the face of Jay, confident that Carter was going to save him. And to make matters even worse, he never got the chance to apologize to Abby. He never got the chance to tell Mark that he was right even though he kept being so persistent, either. He had apologized to the poor man in trauma two, but what good did that do him now? It wasn't like the man could really accept the apology... or let Carter know that he did, anyway. There was nothing left to do but go home and sleep on it, one thing Carter didn't want to do. Of course he wanted to sleep, but not with this running through his head.  
  
As he descended to the ER, he saw no one but the late night crew. Mark had left.  
  
"Wonderful," Carter said sarcastically. As he walked, he decided to talk to one of the receptionists to see the schedule of who was where for the next day. He was going to apologize, and not miss any chances.  
  
"Hey, how are you?" Carter asked the receptionist, trying to seem optimistic.  
  
"Fine, and you?" the young girl replied, realizing that the answer was probably not going to be positive.  
  
"I've been better," Carter answered, still smiling. "Say, could I see that?" he asked. He pointed to a blue binder thick with paper and divider tabs.  
  
"Sure," The girl said with a smile, handing it over.  
  
Carter looked through the book to see who was on for the next day. However, something was missing. Carter needed to ask a sudden question, but knew that the receptionist wouldn't be able to answer. Just to his luck, he turned around, the binder still in hand, to see Kerri Weaver.  
  
"Hey Doctor Weaver," he said, making her turn.  
  
"Yea Carter?" said, her hand on the door.  
  
"Could you tell me something?" Carter asked, walking toward her with his finger on a page in the binder.  
  
"Yea sure, what do you need?"  
  
"Could you tell me why that spot is blank?" Carter asked, still pointing.  
  
"Well, Carter, that would mean that no one is working that time," she answered with a "Duh, Carter" expression in her voice.  
  
"I know, I know... but that's Abby's spot. Why isn't she there?"  
  
Weaver took her hand off the door and turned to face him. "She is taking her vacation week, don't you remember? About two weeks ago, she was all happy that she was going on vacation and she took what's left of this week out." She explained this, still remembering about Carter the sleeping storyteller and smiling about the fact that Carter was concerned about her, making the story all the more true.  
  
"Oh, well, I just needed to tell her something really important, that's all. Oh well," Carter said with a sigh, snapping the binder shut and giving it back to the receptionist (who didn't know the story... one of the few.)  
  
'Like what, like the fact that you love her?' Weaver thought. "Okay," she said aloud. "I have to go. You should get going, too. Your shift was..."  
  
"Over an hour ago, I know," Carter said, finishing her sentence.  
  
"Yea, exactly. Well, I'll see you tomorrow," Kerri said, finally going out the door.  
  
"Bye," Carter said after her. He was screwed.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
When Carter finally got home, he realized there was no where to park. Who has a party in the middle of October for no apparent reason? Well, there seemed to be cars in every available spot. He wound up parking down and across the street, where he had a long distance to get to his own apartment. This was definitely not his night... not to mention there was a loud music fest going on right across from his building. 'No sleep anyway!' He thought. It was time to get to Abby.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter sat in his apartment on the couch in his pajamas, thinking of what he could do. He had tried to get Abby's phone number, but she wasn't listed. He tried to get the directory of people that worked in the ER, but that was something he couldn't find. Information wasn't exactly a big help, either, considering that no one could seem to connect him to the right number.  
  
Then he remembered something; he had recently been to her house. He couldn't remember what for, but he had been. Then that eventually came to him, he had driven her to work as a favor (since he owed her so many of those) and he had written down the address. But where did he put it? He started with the little containers randomly placed around the apartment, then worked his way to his hamper. By the fourth pair of pants down, he found a slip of paper in the right pocket. He opened the paper, praying for some actual good thing to happen, and it did. This was her address.  
  
He realized how crazy he would seem, going to her house close to midnight in his pajamas just to apologize, but he didn't care. He was in love, and that was what mattered. And if there was any hope of the relationship he longed for, this was something he was going to have to do.  
  
Carter threw on his coat as he left the room, his keys jingling in the pocket as he ran. He bounded down the steps, skipping the bottom few with a leap, and headed toward the door. He walked down the steps, a now routine thing considering that he had almost fallen a few times because of all the frost. But as usual, he figured the street would be salted, and that would be when he would break into a run again. His figuring was wrong.  
  
As he ran out onto the street, his feet found the black ice and slipped as he went down on his back, his head hitting the road and his vision blurring into a world of black.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
When Carter finally came to, he looked straight ahead, but there was nothing to see, for a bright light quickly blinded him. He didn't know where he was or how he had gotten there, nor did he remember what had happened in the first place. All he knew was that this light was way too bright for him. He tried to shield his eyes, but he couldn't bring his hand to his face. It was either too heavy or being held down somehow. So he stared into the light that seemed to be getting brighter with every passing second. Before he could fathom just what was happening, the blinding light made a screeching noise that he recognized as squealing brakes, and it was all too loud for him. Just when he thought he knew what was going on, and he grasped the smell of rubber, he saw black all over again.  
  
A few minutes later, the darkness and the smell backed away as he realized what he was looking at. He was facing sideways, and his blurred vision came into clear. He was looking at what was the wheel of a very low car. God knew why. He then heard footsteps and saw a shadowed figure kneel down to his level. A deep voice spoke to him, but he could not understand what it said.  
  
Carter made a confused face as he tried to speak, but nothing came out. Eventually, a cough started him on words. "What?" Carter asked the voice. It spoke again, but it was still hard to hear. "What?" Carter asked again.  
  
"Are you all right?" the voice asked him. It was definitely a male tone.  
  
"I don't know," Carter said in a raspy tone. He tried to speak more, but it took a little while. "Maybe I would if I knew what was going on," he managed after a short amount of time that consisted of him wetting his mouth to speak.  
  
"Okay," the voice said, sounding a little stressed. "Um... okay, let me start here. My name is Curt, and I was driving along this road when I saw you lying in the middle of it. I slammed on my brakes, but I skidded on the ice. I don't know if I hit you. Do you feel like I hit you?" He spoke slowly and clearly for the man he had just found on the road.  
  
"I don't really feel anything, actually, but I don't think you hit me," Carter admitted. The man took his hand. Carter finally got the strength to look at the face of the most helpful person he knew at the moment. He was a small man, but had a full head of light brown hair, much lighter than his own. He wore a stressed look on his face, and his blue eyes showed it the most.  
  
"Well no wonder you don't feel anything," Curt explained. "Your hands are ice cold... and are those... pajamas that you're wearing?"  
  
"Yea," Carter said with a small laugh that made him hurt. His head had hurt already from the locker and door incident, but by this point it was pounding.  
  
"Well, I don't know how you got here, but I think you really need some help."  
  
Carter tried to think of the answer that would explain the man's confusion.  
  
"Abby!" He almost yelled suddenly. This made his head hurt more as he jerked. "Ow!"  
  
"What?" Curt asked.  
  
"That's how I got here, I was supposed to get to Abby! Ow! Christ Almighty, my head!"  
  
"Settle down," Curt advised. "Who's Abby?"  
  
"She's uh..." Carter contemplated whether he should tell the man or not. 'Oh what the hell, I don't know him,' he figured. "She's this girl that, uh, well let's say she means a lot to me, and I kind of screwed up today, and I have to go apologize before she leaves for vacation."  
  
"Oh," Curt said, still a little confused. "Well, I don't think that's going to happen tonight, sorry buddy."  
  
"Crap. What time is it? And by the way, my name's Doctor John Carter."  
  
"It's about quarter to one, and you're a doctor?"  
  
"Damn it, and yes."  
  
"So does this mean that I can call your work place?" Curt asked.  
  
"Yes. Do you have a phone?"  
  
"Yes I do. Do you have a number?"  
  
"Yes I do," Carter said, ready to rattle off the number.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
In no time, thanks to the fact that no one was stupid enough to hurt themselves this late at night, the paramedics arrived. He was put in a brace and taken back to work.  
  
"Thanks for working the graveyard shift, you guys! You're all doing a wonderful job," Carter said with gratitude. Curt drove along behind the ambulance. He wanted to make sure everything was okay.  
  
"What's your name?" one of the paramedics asked, not able to see his face.  
  
"It's John. Well, call me Carter, actually. Yea, that would be better."  
  
"Carter? That's you? I didn't even notice!" This was a paramedic he recognized, but he couldn't think of the name.  
  
"Yep, it's me. I'm not having the best of luck today."  
  
"I see that."  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter heard the ER doors open and the wheels of the gurney that carried him rattling as he was pushed through the doors.  
  
"All right, what's going on here?" said a familiar voice, undoubtedly Luka's.  
  
The paramedic explained what was going on, but before he could say the name, Luka found it out.  
  
"Carter?" he exclaimed in surprise.  
  
"Yea. Boy, you're on a long shift," Carter pointed out.  
  
"Lucky for you. Elizabeth is, too. She came down here to help me out when we got the call, considering that surgery does nothing this time of night."  
  
"Ooh, a good team," Carter encouraged.  
  
Carter's night went all but according to plan for him, while at the same time according to plan for the ER staff. The rest of the night consisted of Aspirin, a CT Scan that showed that all that had happened was a normal blackout, a cozy bed, and a very warm set of blankets. He was having a sleepover in the ER this time. It wasn't long until Carter dozed off into a light sleep, the thoughts of Abby going miserably on vacation invading his mind.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*: 


	8. The Incentive For Truth

A/N: This chapter's going to go a little fast, and it might be a little bit "Oh come on, why a vacation? Why now?" but you'll have to deal with it. This is more of a tie the loose ends for Carter chapter.  
  
And so many thank you thingers to everybody! I'm so glad to hear that people are reading this. I write when ideas come to me, so bear with me on this chapter. Just remember that Carter keeps having head trauma trouble, and that things aren't so clear anymore. He can't seem to think before he speaks...  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER EIGHT  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Issat, isthayou?" Came a voice from the figure that lay on the gurney, almost in a deep sleep.  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
Carter woke to darkness. Or at least he thought he did. He wasn't sure of this; or anything else for that matter. Everything was a blur, even his vision, and the memories of whatever had gotten him here... by the way, where was he? All he saw was a figure, one he was very sure he knew, but it was outrageously difficult to tell when everything looked hazy and dark. It was still another minute until he felt... nothing. He felt absolutely nothing, not even the drone of a nagging headache. That was the only thing he was positive that he had felt in the past time. Only God knew how long that time was. Carter brought his attention back to the figure.  
  
"Is that... is that you?" Carter said, but that was not what the anonymous person heard. What he had heard was completely different.  
  
Carter heard nothing from the person.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
"I said, how are you doing?" The voice said.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
"Who are you? I can't see a thing!" Carter asked.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
"Hrryou? Icaseeathin." the figure on the gurney slurred again.  
  
"It's me, Carter." The voice said. "Hold on a sec..."  
  
~~~~~~  
  
Carter heard nothing but slurs of words; could they even be words? Or was it the drone of machinery? Suddenly, something very cold pressed against his head. The cold had not affected him, for he hadn't felt the cold. He only jumped from the sudden jolt into reality that the cold had provided. Now there was no darkness, but everything was blurry, almost on the verge of doubling. He could hear clearly now, but he couldn't see a thing. Now all he knew was that the figure before him had brown hair and was wearing white... possibly a doctor's jacket. Yes, this was the person he had longed to see.  
  
"Are you okay?" the anonymous figure asked.  
  
"I can't - I can't see, everything's all blurry!" Now he recognized the voice. "Oh man, thank God it's you! You just made my day half-better! WHOA!" There was a cold shock, then darkness. "Oh crap, I can't see! I can't see anything!"  
  
"That's because I haven't taken the ice pack off your eyes. Just wait a second."  
  
Carter laughed at himself, then in amazement that he could finally see straight and clearly. "Thanks, I haven't done anything clearly since... wait a minute, what time is it?" he asked frantically.  
  
"It's about quarter to two."  
  
"What day is it?" he asked, just to be sure.  
  
"It's Wednesday."  
  
"What was yesterday?" he asked, once again to be sure.  
  
"Tuesday." This was in a sarcastic matter-of-factly tone.  
  
"I know that, I meant what happened yesterday?"  
  
"Well, I slept at your house on Monday, remember?"  
  
"Oh good, so I've only been out for the night. Thanks Mark."  
  
"What happened?" Mark asked.  
  
"Well, first I want to say that I'm sorry for the way I acted in trauma, uh," Carter started, then put his hand in the air for gesturing. He held up two fingers. "trauma, two?" Mark nodded at him to signify that he was right. "Yea, well I'm sorry I was so persistent and all." He put his hand back down, realizing how heavy it felt after a while.  
  
"It's okay, it was all your instincts."  
  
"Anyway, I'm sorry and, uh... Oh yea, after the trauma I yelled at Abby for no apparent reason and I wanted to say I was sorry, but she was about to go on vacation so I was going to go to her house and apologize when, uh, wait. I was going to apologize, when... Where's Curt?" Carter interrupted himself.  
  
"He had to go to work, Carter." Mark was on the verge of saying a simple "Duh, Carter."  
  
"Oh well, if he comes back I want to talk to him. Wait, when do I start?"  
  
"You STARTED about four hours ago. Now continue the story!" Mark said anxiously.  
  
"Uh, then I fell, then I don't really remember, but I know this guy Curt came along, nearly hitting me with his car nonetheless, but he got me and called the paramedics for me." Carter was pretty sure that was the story. "Oh wow, quarter to two? I have to get to work!"  
  
"Whoa, hold on. You're not going to work with head trauma," Mark said sternly.  
  
"But I have a job!" Carter said persistently.  
  
"Not today," Mark said with a hint of jealousy that he would have to work.  
  
"Oh," Carter whined. "okay, but can I at least go on the desk or something?"  
  
"Take the day off, Carter. Curt said he'd come back around three, so wait till then, and then go home and collect yourself. No offense, but you look like hell," Mark commented.  
  
"Thanks," Carter said sarcastically.  
  
"Mark, you're wanted in exam three," an extra female voice said.  
  
"Thanks Chuny," Mark said as he smiled to Carter and walked out of the room.  
  
"How's this one?" Chuny asked with a laugh.  
  
"It's worse than the last," Carter admitted. "This is the third time this week!"  
  
"Really? I thought it was the second," she said.  
  
"Nope. Come sit, I'll fill you in on my masochistic ways," Carter said with an inviting smile.  
  
She was immediately convinced. "Go ahead... enlighten me."  
  
"Well..."  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Come on, why'd you do it?" Chuny asked. "People just don't go around knocking themselves into lockers. Not normally, or do you want me to call Psyche?"  
  
"I was just having a bad day."  
  
"No you weren't."  
  
"Yes I was."  
  
"No, you weren't."  
  
"Yes I was. Besides, how would you know?"  
  
"You were happy all day!" Chuny was getting annoyed.  
  
"A patient was annoying me, that's all," Carter lied. And badly.  
  
"Yea right. Come on, I want the truth. Truth! Now!" She was getting very anxious.  
  
Carter stared her in the eye, then sighed. "Okay. But you can't tell a soul. Not one person can know. Not yet."  
  
'Sh*t,' Carter thought. There was no conniving your way out of that woman's instinct.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter stared out onto the road in front of his apartment. He had gotten there in his pajamas, but now he was in some normal clothing. Not like it mattered.  
  
"Everyone's going to know. Chuny can't keep a secret, it's that nurse thing."  
  
After a few minutes of staring into vacant oblivion, Carter realized something. Every good aspect was followed by a bad thought, but at least he could work his way to the end of the chain.  
  
"If she would tell, then everyone would know. Of course, the downside is, they already know. But then everyone would know it was true. Then there would be tension. But then someone would slip out the secret to Abby. Or maybe they wouldn't," Carter pondered.  
  
His thoughts were running rapidly. There was no breaking this chain. "But they probably will. And then she won't believe them, because no one believes gossip. But sometimes they do. But if she does, she'll avoid me. She can't avoid me anymore, so that's a good thing. Of course, that's because she's already avoiding me. But I can apologize. But she's on vacation. But I can wait until she gets back." That was the end of the chain. Carter would have to settle for it.  
  
"I have to wait." Carter looked at the road now, despising the salt that now lay there. That turned his attention. "Oh, sure... NOW they salt it!"  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*: 


	9. Chain Of Fools

A/N: Thanks SO much again, you guys! I'm working on this a lot lately, as you can tell. But I keep adding little twists and turns and wedges. Just the angst that every story needs! Hehe. I love doing this. I'M IN COMPLETE CONTROL! MOWAHAHA! YES! I own my own little unnoticed section of ER now, and here it is. I am the director! And I can make ANYTHING happen. (Including using all caps for emphasis because the italics never works on this site.) Anyway, I'm back to normal now! Enjoy.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER NINE  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter rolled over to face the red numbers that stared him in the face for the third time. 7:14 was all it could tell him. Nothing more. He was hoping for maybe an eight in front of that fourteen, but no. It had been the longest week of his entire life, and an even longer morning that seemed to outdo the whole week by far. He had no reason to be awake this early. His shift started at nine. At about ten he would see Abby and finally get to hear her voice... hopefully. He wanted to hear her, wanted to see her. He yearned to finally speak with Abby. Of course, he would have to wait for about three more hours.  
  
He decided there was nothing better to do than start the day off with some coffee. By the time he got to the cabinet where he kept the mugs that conveniently came with the apartment, he remembered that there was no coffee.  
  
"Crap." That was all he could think of.  
  
So he gave in to the idea of ice water. He pulled out a mug anyway (Cup, mug, it makes no difference.) and went to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. He shoved the one in the front away, realizing that he had opened it a week ago and rubbed it on his sweat-soaked face. The idea really was not that appealing. Carter reached to the back and grabbed a new bottle. He decided to use the mug just to at least look like he was having coffee, and figured it would add to the effect.  
  
As Carter sat down on the couch, he noticed something on the white background of the mug. What he saw was a small bird depicted on the side with an even smaller blue caption underneath it, and brought the mug close to his eye level to read it. The identification caption for the odd-looking bird read "TUFTED TITMOUSE".  
  
"Great," he said aloud. "I'm going to be hanging out with the busty bird." Carter figured he might as well make friends with this bird. "Hey claw- footed booby, my name's John, what's yours?"  
  
Yes, it was definitely too early.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter had long ago decided to catch up on his sleep in the lounge. As though he had some kind of an internal clock, an alarm went off in his head. He immediately looked down at his watch. Ten o' clock exactly. He couldn't have been more accurate. He went to the ambulance bay, where he had seen Abby enter a few times to avoid the chaos of the admit desk.  
  
He waited. He waited a little longer. And for a change of pace, he sat and waited. And waited a litter longer. Of course, he only waited for about two minutes. But every second is an eternity to the man waiting for the girl... who's ALWAYS late. Fashionably or not. He had to see her. Carter owed her two lives, a wound flushing, an apology, and a load of moral support. He was up to his soul in debt.  
  
After about five minutes, Carter got a little ansi. He began to ponder about how psychotic he would seem, hammering Abby in the face with an apology for an ordeal that she probably had forgotten about already (but hopefully not, any conversation would do). After eight minutes, he got a little worried.  
  
Just before Carter was on the brink of flipping his mind inside out to go look for Abby, he saw her walking in. The ambulance bay doors slid apart to let her through. Carter's face lit with a huge smile.  
  
"Hey Abby!" he called, despite the fact that he was only about twenty feet away from her.  
  
Abby only looked at him. Her expression was one of confusion and awe that Carter was talking to her. He knew by that look that she had in deed remembered.  
  
"Abby," he started, running so fast that he nearly ran into her. He unconsciously put his hands on her shoulders. "Abby, before you walk any further..."  
  
"Carter, what are you doing?" she interrupted, removing his hands from her shoulders.  
  
"Just listen." He still had the smile across his face. "I just wanted to start by saying that about last week, I never meant to..."  
  
She interrupted him again. "Look, Carter. I just got back from a wonderful vacation in a place where people don't randomly lash out at me. Now don't go bringing up things that make my time off seem pointless."  
  
"But Abby, you..."  
  
"Just let it go. You obviously felt you HAD to yell at me for trying to help you." She just kept going. Something was bothering her.  
  
"But you don't understand, I..."  
  
"No, really. I do. If you didn't want me there, you could've just asked me nicely. Do you know how something like that feels? Carter, do you know what it's like to have someone just blatantly turn you down when all you want to do is help?"  
  
"Abby, please. Just listen..." his voice was getting louder, as if ten people were trying to object him at the same time.  
  
"Why should I?" she asked, her voice only becoming tense, though remaining at the same volume. "I wanted you to listen. I've listened to your problems enough. I haven't been able to talk to anyone about MY problems. Must be nice! Do you know..."  
  
Now Carter interrupted her in a raised voice. "No, Abby. Do you know how that felt for me?"  
  
"No. And frankly, I don't want to." She was still clueless about the trauma that day.  
  
Carter's smile had changed from one of pure relief to one of saddened confusion long ago. Now he stood in front of her, looking defeated, his front teeth showing prominently. Tears were welling in his eyes.  
  
"You don't get it, do you?" he started, his voice extremely shaky. "Do you know how it feels to promise a person that you are going to help them, and you can't? Abby, I let a man down that day. He died of the exact same thing that I lived through. I knew how he felt. I wanted to help him, but I couldn't. He DIED, Abby. And at the time I was NOT in the mood. I wasn't okay with any of it, and I know no one else was. I just needed time to gather myself together, Abby. Do you know how THAT feels?" He had been holding back tears for a while now.  
  
"How was I supposed to know?" she asked, her voice hinting that she was shocked.  
  
"I was going to tell you. All you had to do was understand when I was trying to apologize. That's all I wanted."  
  
"Carter, I'm sor..."  
  
"No. Just leave it." Carter turned away from her before he felt like he was going to break down. He could not face her now. The twisted smile of frustration remained on his face. He rushed down the hall and turned right. In that corridor, he faced the wall. There, he crossed his arms and leaned on the wall, resting his head beneath them, his hands in fists. As he looked down, the tears finally fell.  
  
"Now what?" he asked himself, sadness filling his voice.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"So it's true?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Yea," Chuny said. "But please, don't tell ANYONE! I wasn't even supposed to tell you."  
  
"All right," Lydia lied.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Lydia watched Chuny very carefully as she rounded the corner. "Now to find Jing-Mei and Mark!" she said, manipulating her smile into the twisted grin that secret-keepers get. And, just to her luck, there they came, walking down the hall. "Yes!" she said under her breath. 'And the truth,' she thought, 'shall set you free!'  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter sat alone in the locker room with no illumination. He was determined to relax after the stress of the morning. He was now entirely exhausted, for he had barely slept for the past week. Carter desperately needed sleep... and that locker door was looking pretty inviting again.  
  
"No," he told himself, much like a master tells his dog.  
  
Carter lay down on the bench he was seated on while he stared at his locker door, debating whether or not slamming his head into it was worth it. It wasn't very comfortable, having to balance himself the entire time. No sooner did he close his eyes when there was a nearly mute click at the door. He listened to the padding of footsteps as they quietly made their way to a locker close by. He squinted to see, then relaxed again.  
  
"Hi, Deb," He said after a long while.  
  
"Carter! You scared the living daylights out of me," she scolded. She had jumped nearly into her locker at the sudden sound of his voice. This made Carter laugh.  
  
"Sorry Deb, but I couldn't resist!" he admitted, fighting back laughter.  
  
"Yea, that's not the only thing you can't resist," she whispered under her breath. Surely no normal person would have heard that. But Carter isn't normal.  
  
"Like what else?" Carter asked in reply to her comment.  
  
'Crap,' she thought. "What?" was all she could say.  
  
"What can't I resist? Huh? Huh? What?" he prodded childishly.  
  
"What? I didn't say anything."  
  
At this, Carter got up from his wooden bed and put an arm around Jing-Mei's shoulder. "I heard it. Now tell me," he whispered in her ear.  
  
"Well... all right. I guess it's about time I've told you. But you can't tell... oh wait, never mind. Anyway, apparently you told Mark that you loved Abby in your sleep..."  
  
"Oh DID I?" he asked in sarcastic interest.  
  
"... but you told Chuny the truth! You weren't sleeping! You little..."  
  
Carter gasped melodramatically. "No!" He was coating every word with sarcasm and soapy drama now.  
  
"So it's true."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Have you told her?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Damn you."  
  
"Oh thanks. But unfortunately for me, and for your gossip chain, I don't think she ever wants to come within ten feet of me any more."  
  
Jing-Mei's expression switched to a sort of terror. "Oh no. No! You're kidding! John Carter, please tell me you're joking."  
  
"I'm not," Carter said, his gaze focusing on the ground.  
  
Jing-Mei had no advice, and Carter could tell. He understood. Even if she would have had any advice she would have been too speechless to tell him. She only hugged Carter for admitting the truth and for good luck, then left the room, leaving him with nothing but a confused expression.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"I don't think Dr. Carter wants to come within ten feet of me anymore. I think he has some kind of a thing against me."  
  
"What makes you think that, Abby?" Elizabeth asked. It was female-talk time now.  
  
"He keeps yelling at me and we keep fighting over different things that happen in the ER, so I think he's just got something against me," Abby said.  
  
"He just a bit shaken. I mean, what with the trauma last week and all," Elizabeth explained.  
  
"Yea, but he yelled at me that day. And I didn't know about what happened in that room until today!"  
  
Elizabeth looked astonished. "You didn't? Oh. Wow. I never knew that. He yelled at you?"  
  
"I guess he didn't know that either. And yes, he yelled at me. Of course, now it's a little too late to understand why. It's kind of a shame, too."  
  
"Really? Why is that?" she inquired.  
  
"Oh, I don't know. It's just that, well... I never really noticed it until a few days ago, but I was really getting to like Carter. You have to admit, he is one of the nicest guys here. Cute, too. But he just seems to have something against me, you know?" She sighed. "I just really wanted to get to know him."  
  
Elizabeth knew all the stories now. She knew the truth, that Carter loved Abby. But Abby was too out of the loop to notice. She wanted to tell Abby. The truth was screaming insider her, but her mouth was frozen while her mind ran wild. She was searching for just how to tell her, but found it strange that as a woman she couldn't tell another woman something so simple. She wasn't even sure if she should tell. That WAS Carter's job, but it was too late. Abby was already leaving the room. All Elizabeth could do was smile in pure happiness. 


	10. Mass Confusion Medivac

:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
A/N: Hey, the weirdest thing happened this Thursday. I was watching ER, and there was this guy with a stab wound to the chest... in trauma two. Weird coincidence. Kinda like the name Paul in my last story... you'd get it if you read it. Let's just say I DIDN'T know about Paul Sobriki :shudder: when I wrote that story and I named Carter's old buddy Paul. And I had NO idea. Anyway, this chapter gets it deeper in the story, so brace yourself. THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN!  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER TEN  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
It was ending October, and the air was even cooler than normal. Abby noticed this as she skidded her way across the sidewalks from the El. She knew first off that it would be a trauma-loaded day for Cook County. As she strode along, watching her footsteps carefully (she had heard the rumor about Carter's black ice incident... but she hadn't heard why he was going to drive around at midnight.) she watched tensely as different cars skidded to stops.  
  
"Excuse me," a light and polite voice said from behind her, intruding her precise caution.  
  
"Yes?" Abby replied to the teenager.  
  
A young, blonde girl strode carefully to Abby's right side. "I'm sorry if I'm a burden, but could you show me where the closest convenience store is? I'm a little new to the area."  
  
"Oh, no problem," Abby said, taking her hand. "It's right over here, across this road. But it's one hell of a trip, I'll tell you that."  
  
"Oh I know, I've nearly fallen three times already. Are you sure I'm not interrupting you?"  
  
"No, not at all. I work at the ER right across here." She pointed to the road that led to Cook County. "The store's just off to the right. I'll show you there."  
  
"Thanks," she said, smiling and showing a mouthful of pink braces.  
  
Abby, going back to her path of caution, made their way to the corner. She cringed as she heard squealing brakes in the distance. They were the only signs of warning for pedestrians to clear the road for economy cars with no four-wheel drive or anti-lock brakes. Abby flinched at every skidding noise as she led the girl off the curb. They went slowly, going two feet every ten seconds or so. Abby's mind went insane when she suddenly heard the loudest screech and the harshest of all the squealing brakes she had ever heard. It was off to her left, but insanely loud... and getting louder.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
No sooner did Carter get his scrubs on when there was a slam from down the hall. Two gurneys were being shoved into the ambulance bay.  
  
"We've got two person versus vehicle incidents. There's one teenager. She's still responsive, harsh abrasions on her left side."  
  
"Got it," Mark called.  
  
"Then we've got one more, twenty-something female, some internal chest bleeding, low respiration, lacerations up and down the left side.  
  
Carter looked around. "I'll take it in three."  
  
Mark rushed his patient to trauma one with his team, and so with Carter and his.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
"Name?" Carter yelled to the surrounding team in the trauma room adjacent to Mark's.  
  
"Not yet, as far as I know," Chuny answered.  
  
Carter turned to see Jing-Mei frozen with fear at the head of the gurney.  
  
"Abby," she whispered.  
  
Carter's eyes widened at the sight of the unconscious Abby. His heart sunk, but beat audibly in his ears. He could only stare. When he finally regained motor skill control of himself, he turned and decided to get to the respirator. As he checked it, he realized all too well that it was not fit for a trauma. It was obviously defective.  
  
"Who restocked this room?" Carter asked, enraged. No one answered. "No one checked this respirator. It's not going to work!" That got him a look of shock from the team.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
"All right," Mark said. "Bag and stabilize this teen, then put her in curtain two. I've got medivac duty."  
  
"Ooh, medivac!" Malucci hinted.  
  
"No Dave. I'm taking Carter. He's my best help in the air."  
  
"Can I go next time then?" he begged.  
  
"Yes. Just as long as I'm not bringing Carter." He then turned to the team again. "Is she good?"  
  
One of the nurses nodded to him.  
  
"Then get her situated and move her as soon as you can. Remember, curtain two." He looked at the clock, took his scrub jacket and gloves off, and ran out of the room.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
"Oh well, we'll have to make do with this. I don't have time to get another one," Carter said.  
  
It didn't take long to stop the bleeding and flush the lacerations. (That would have to be done better by a nurse later, anyway.) Carter started the respirator.  
  
"I have to do medivac with Mark, so I want you to move her when you're done."  
  
"Where to?" Chuny asked.  
  
Carter looked down the hall to the curtained rooms. Each was empty, so he randomly pointed. "Curtain two." The nurses nodded to show that they had heard him, and he walked to the front desk.  
  
"Hey Malik, could you switch a good respirator with that hunk of crap in curtain two, then find the idiot that forgot to put a good one in trauma three?"  
  
"Sure," Malik answered.  
  
"Thanks. I have medivac duty. See you!" With that, Carter stripped off his translucent jacket and gloves and bounded out the door. He forgot to mention that Abby wouldn't be working. He also neglected to double check if curtain two was free.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
Chuny brought the gurney to a halt as she and the team were about to get Abby into curtain two.  
  
"Hold on, this one is taken," she announced.  
  
"Now what?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Just put her in one, Chuny," Jing-Mei suggested.  
  
"Taken," she repeated.  
  
"Okay, three?" Jing-Mei tried.  
  
"Third time's a charm," Chuny announced with a smile. "Just make sure that the board gets updated."  
  
Lydia took that responsibility.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
The medivac chopper's blades whirled and cut through the icy air as it descended onto the scene of another person versus vehicle. Carter waited readily by the gurney as he watched a man just a little older than he was being hoisted on it. He helped to secure the man and waited for instruction, but instead an annoyed and graying man approached him.  
  
"That little imbecile was J-walking!" he yelled, competing with the decibel level of the whooping rotors.  
  
The man on the gurney, though only slightly coherent, attempted to get his say. "There were no crosswalks," he groaned.  
  
Carter shot a glance as if to say "What can I say?" at the graying man.  
  
"Get him in!" Mark yelled.  
  
"Gotcha!" Carter replied, then helped to hoist the gurney into the helicopter.  
  
"So, how do you like this? Black ice, drivers versus pedestrians - loads of fun, isn't it Carter?" Mark yelled, strapping himself into a seat.  
  
Carter secured the gurney and sat down next to Mark. "Oh, loads," he yelled, then looked at the floor beneath him.  
  
"Worried about Abby?" Mark asked. He was trying to sound sympathetic, but yelling over the chopper's rotors was not exactly helping.  
  
Carter only nodded, then gazed out the window to watch the ground below him move away with every ascending foot of the medivac helicopter.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Malik looked at the clock then made his way down the hall to curtain two. There he found a sleeping blonde teenager.  
  
"Hmm," he muttered. He looked at her breathing rate. Normal. He looked over at the respirator. There seemed to be nothing wrong with it. "Guess someone must've fixed it," he concluded, oblivious that this was not Carter's patient.  
  
Meanwhile, next door, Abby struggled unconsciously.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter sat in the lounge. It was only four o'clock, about three hours since he had seen Abby. He was afraid to see what had become of her, and was exhausted from the three hours of airtime that he had just returned from.  
  
Just then, a sound picked up the attention of his ears. It was annoying and high-pitched, but close and familiar. As he made a horrifying realization, he ran out of the room, following his hearing. It led him instinctively to curtain two, but he quickly found that he was in the wrong place.  
  
Carter looked at the sleeping teen, realizing just what had happened. Mark had gotten there first. He knew that it was the fatal outcome of the unknown race to curtain two.  
  
"Oh Christ," he whispered.  
  
He rushed to curtain three, the source of the shrill, non-rhythmic sound that was V-TAC. Realizing that the respirator had never been replaced, he ran to the front desk in pursuit of Malik's help.  
  
"Malik! Get me a respirator now! Please!" he yelled, his stressful voice echoing down the hall. "Bring it to three!" He rushed back to curtain three, his heart pumping in his ears again. Carter took Abby off the failing respirator while he waited for Malik, then put her on the new one just minutes after Malik had entered the room.  
  
Carter then collapsed in the nearest chair.  
  
"How long has she been like this?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He already knew the answer to that.  
  
"I thought your patient was in two," Malik explained.  
  
"I know, I know. It's not your fault. Mark must have gotten there before me. It was empty when I looked. I just never double checked or anything."  
  
"I'm really sorry, I should have suspected something."  
  
"Don't put this on yourself, Malik. None of this was your fault."  
  
Malik kneeled down next to Carter and faced Abby. Carter's mouth was in a blank, sorrowful expression while his eyes, though misty, were fixed on the still Abby. He stared at her face, studying its every detail. Her face hadn't been affected in the slightest by the accident, but this did not even so much as cross Carter's mind. Malik looked at Carter.  
  
"She's going to be all right, Carter," Malik reassured him.  
  
"I know, but..." Carter never finished this thought. He just looked at Abby, not blinking or flinching. Malik smiled at this (he knew the rumors). "She's beautiful, Malik. Ever notice that?"  
  
Malik nodded. "You want to uh, be alone? I'll come back if anyone needs you." He rose to his feet again.  
  
"Thanks, Malik."  
  
"No problem, Carter." With that, he left.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Hey Carter," Malik said an hour later, snapping Carter out of what seemed to be "Abby-mode".  
  
"Yea?" Carter asked, rubbing his eyes that were burning from his negligence to blink.  
  
"We have some patients that we need you to look at. Everyone else is kind of tied."  
  
"Thanks." Carter followed Malik to the desk, where he was given a slew of charts. The first looked fun.  
  
Carter escorted himself to exam one, where he greeted a very distraught-looking father and his three-year-old looking son.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Swanson. I'm Doctor John Carter. What seems to be the problem?" he asked as optimistically as possible.  
  
"My son, he came to me just a few minutes ago when I was salting the sidewalk, and he said he tasted something funny. Then I asked him if he ate anything strange... and he said he ate the salt!"  
  
"Was he having any symptoms of poisoning? I mean, was he in any way acting abnormally or anything?"  
  
"No, that's the weirdest part. Nothing. He was fine. He didn't even look like he was guilty," he said, now entirely stressed out.  
  
"Calm down, we'll get a tox screen for him and I'll be back with the results. Chuny?" He nodded to Chuny, who nodded back. Carter moved to the next patient... who had somehow manipulated himself to skid face-first into a brick wall.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"So, just take some Tylenol, and that should make everything just fine," Carter said, raising his eyebrows and smiling. "Trust me, I had three cranium-to-hard-surface contacts in one day last week." He laughed as he mentally reminisced.  
  
"Hey Carter?" It was Chuny. "You'll never believe this tox screen on that kind in one."  
  
Carter smiled at Chuny, who was also smiling, as he took the results from her and returned to exam one. There, Mr. Swanson sat next to his son on the bed.  
  
"Mr. Swanson?" Carter put in to get his attention. "I have his results."  
  
"And...?" he asked, becoming tense.  
  
"It showed that your son had an abnormal Sodium Chloride content in his recent diet."  
  
Mr. Swanson's expression turned to one of sadness.  
  
"Mr. Swanson, your son ate table salt."  
  
The man's face beamed. "Thank you, Doctor Carter!" He ran to his son and hugged him.  
  
Carter only smiled at the bond between the two and rolled his eyes at the comedy of the misunderstanding, then resumed his trip around the ER.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*: 


	11. Here I Come To Save The Day!

:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER ELEVEN  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
A/N: Okay guys, time to get this fic back on the right track! (Thanks carbytrekie02.) Thanks for the reviews again (hyperpiper91, StrokeoFlucK, shutupandlisten17, CARTERJOHN, Nurse Mandi, you guys encourage me so much!)! You guys are awesome. All righty then. With that said, here it goes!  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER ELEVEN  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. He was exhausted and needed sleep desperately, but his shift ran for just one more hour. But of course it seemed like another eternity. He looked around, then found a very inviting file cabinet behind the front desk. That was where he dropped himself in a heap with a tin-sounding thump. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall behind him.  
  
"Thirty-three patients," he mumbled tiredly. "I had a new patient... every ten minutes. Less. Four hours, thirty-three patients. Not for... not for a human."  
  
He made Chuny laugh at this comment.  
  
"Oh come on, Carter. Just hang in there a little longer. It's slowing down. And be glad there's no graveyard shift for you."  
  
"I am glad. Trust me, I am," he said, opening his eyes to look at her. "Hey, if anyone needs me, I'll..."  
  
"Be in three."  
  
"Yes, thank you."  
  
"Mm-hm."  
  
Carter did as planned and headed to curtain three where he pulled a chair to Abby's bedside. He brushed the hair from her face and smiled at her.  
  
"Abby, come on. You've got to come to sometime." He looked at her again, then out the window on the door. "I'm going to have to make you wake up soon. Just a little sugar shock or something." He laughed a little at this then looked back at her. He knew that she had been awake before, but just barely, and he had missed it. He knew that by just coaxing her she would come to. "Well, I know you can hear me. Or at least I believe you can. I know I can't hear you, but you can hear me. Look, I know that you probably want to stay asleep just as much as I do, but you can't. We need you here. I need you here, I know that." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "I want you back in the ER." Carter knew it was senseless to talk her into waking up, but he didn't really care. No one was taking notes, why should he care? "Well, I need a pick-me-up. I'll be back." He had left his coat on the chair before, in his five minutes of free time somewhere over the last four hours. He put it on and buttoned it tightly. "Love ya."  
  
Carter went toward the ambulance bay.  
  
"I'm going to Doc's for some caffeine. Page me if you need me!" he called to no one in particular. It really didn't matter. Someone always heard these little memos.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter stepped into the frosty air and carefully made his way to Doc's. When he got to the door, he stood under the doorway for just a minute to feel the heat blowing down on him. He then took a seat on a barstool and unbuttoned his jacket for the sudden warmth. A girl with light brown hair came to him.  
  
"Hey," she said, looking at his identification card that was clipped to the neck of his green scrubs. "Doctor Carter."  
  
He squinted lightly to see the small black letters embossed into her white plastic nametag. "Hey Christina."  
  
She smiled at him. "What can I get for you?"  
  
"Uh, anything warm and caffeinated will work."  
  
"Coffee? Or maybe some hot cocoa?" she asked, smiling again.  
  
"You know what, cocoa for a change," he suggested.  
  
"Okay, I'll be back in a jif."  
  
"And could you see if there's any of those little marshmallows?" he asked, holding up the fingers of his left hand as if he were holding one.  
  
"Anything for the doc," she said with yet another smile.  
  
"Thanks." Carter pulled out a straw and a napkin. He ripped most of the paper off the straw, then put his mouth on one end to blow the paper off the other end and into his hand. He chuckled at the loop-like pattern it did before it landed, then struggled to put the paper back on to see if he could manage a full loop.  
  
"The paper never goes back on," Christina said as she set down his cocoa.  
  
"It does if I can help it." Carter put his straw down, realizing it was a soda straw and not a coffee straw, then lifted his mug to his mouth. The steam rose slowly to his face as he smelled the cocoa. "Wow, this smells really good. My compliments to the chef."  
  
"Thanks," she said.  
  
He took a sip of the cocoa, taking in a few miniature marshmallows, then sucked in air to cool his burning tongue. Christina laughed at this.  
  
"So, you work at County. What's it like?"  
  
"It's not bad. Hard day, though."  
  
"Yea, I bet."  
  
"Not enough."  
  
She looked at him, slightly perplexed.  
  
"Never mind," Carter said, sipping his cocoa again. This time he pulled out a spoon and fished out the marshmallows.  
  
"So, anything else?" she asked, then dropped her voice to a whisper. "On the house?"  
  
"No, I'll pay for it. I owe enough people some things already," he said, not wanting to get into detail.  
  
"Oh, come on," she said playfully.  
  
"No thanks. I have to get back to work soon, anyway. I'm only on an unauthorized break. I should actually be having this to go."  
  
"Oh, do you have to? I mean, there's no one else to talk to around here."  
  
"No one back there, either," he lied.  
  
She caught him. "With all those people? Not one person? I'm sure there's someone... a girl, perhaps?"  
  
Carter didn't want to answer this. Not at all. "Well, everyone's shifts are already over. And the girl... she's busy."  
  
"It can't be that busy if you had time to come here."  
  
"I'd uh, I'd rather not get into it," he admitted, sipping more cocoa.  
  
"Girl trouble? I could help you out if you'd like," she offered, hinting for a further conversation.  
  
"I... don't think you could, actually."  
  
"Are you underestimating the power of a woman, Doctor Carter?" she asked jokingly.  
  
"Unless you can heal people with your own two hands, then yes, I believe I am." 'That ought to end that conversation,' he thought with another sip from the scalding mug.  
  
She put on an apologetic look. "I guess not."  
  
"I have to go," he said.  
  
She pulled over a Styrofoam cup and a plastic lid with a coffee straw, then poured his cocoa in it silently.  
  
"Thanks," Carter said whole-heartedly with a smile. "I needed it." He set a five-dollar bill on the counter and turned to leave.  
  
"No problem, and thank you!" she said after him. "Oh yea, and good luck to you."  
  
"Thanks!" Carter called, then stepped back out the door, his coat fluttering in the wind.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter's shift had been over for about ten minutes, and his cocoa was long gone. He was again next to Abby, lying parallel to her in his chair and sleeping, his hand over hers.  
  
He woke to a sudden tapping on his palm, blinking his eyes to adjust to the surprising darkness in the room. Just one light illuminated the entire area. He tried not to let that distract him as he looked to his right hand for an answer to the light pressure he had felt. He then looked at Abby, who was awake and looking at him.  
  
"Hey, sleepy," they said in unison.  
  
"Glad to see you're finally awake," Carter told her truthfully.  
  
"Glad to see that you're awake," she repeated softly.  
  
"Do you... remember anything?" he asked inquisitively.  
  
"Vividly. Up until after that guy hit me, but then everything's kind of absent."  
  
"No fair," he said in a mockery of jealousy. "Everything was blurry for me."  
  
"That's because you hit your head, you goof."  
  
"Oh, right." He smiled at her, and she smiled back.  
  
"I think I might have heard you," she said suddenly.  
  
Carter looked at her with an interested look.  
  
"Thanks for waking me up."  
  
"No problem," Carter said. Then there was an awkward silence.  
  
"Hey Carter," she said, simultaneously with his "Hey Abby."  
  
"You go," he said politely.  
  
"Thanks. About the other day, I'm really sorry. I was out of line. I just didn't know, or else I would have listened. I mean, I had been helping you out all day and then you just snapped at me, I don't know. I shouldn't have said anything back at you. I was just in a really good mood and then you brought that up and... You know, it was a defensive thing."  
  
"I understand. I'm really sorry, too. I should have told you... No, wait. Scratch that. I shouldn't have yelled at you in the first place. Friends?" he asked, looking at her.  
  
"Yea. Any time, you know that, right?"  
  
"Yea. Same here." Carter then stood up. Abby sat up, too.  
  
"Could you?" she asked, looking back at the flat bed.  
  
"Sure," Carter said, then raised the back of the bed so she could lean back and sit. He then leaned over and gave her a hug. She hugged him back.  
  
"I'm going to go alert staff that you're awake. I'll be back in a minute."  
  
"Okay," she called after him as he left. She then sat back and smiled contently to herself, relieved to get everything off her mind. Save for one thing, which was obviously a person. And that was Carter.  
  
~~~~  
  
Carter leaned against the nearest wall, his hands clasped and his gaze facing upward, but not at the ceiling. "Thanks, Big Guy," he said aloud. He was clean. Everything was right again, with a simple apology. It could have happened a long time ago, but the two of them acting like high schoolers didn't help that. But it was over. The trouble was done, and he was ready to start anew from where he left off that night on the roof. His mind was clear, and nothing was there. Save for one person. 


	12. Fexo Feno What?

:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
A/N and Disclaimer: Okay, I don't know where this is going. At all. And just so I don't get in trouble, the song referred to in this chapter is "Broken Sound" by A New Found Glory. If you ever get the chance to listen to it, it's short and sweet. I love it. Anyway, off to the middle of nowhere!  
  
P.S. For all of you who are watching season ten right now, I'll bet you've been exasperated to know what in the world was on Carter's letter to Abby... WELL, if you go to nbc.com and look for the ER part of the web site (or it might still be on the front page), you'll see a feature that lets you read that letter! GO TO IT! You know you should. It's really informative. But Crichton is making me sad... where's Noah? *melodramatic tear* It's the only place besides TNT and Blockbuster that I get to see him do his fabulous acting. Anyway, read that, and if you don't have access to it and you review, then maybe I could post it somewhere, but I'd rather not since it's kind of uh, COPYRIGHTED (no plagiarism here). And thanks for the reviews, speaking of which! You guys are kickin'!  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER TWELVE  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CLICK.  
  
("I wake up... something more than what I'm supposed to be... something more than I have meant to show... how was I supposed to know that I've wanted... and I've waited?")  
  
There was a rustling from under a large, blue comforter on a wooden bed. Carter's hair stood, then bounced back into place as he pulled the blanket down to reveal his face. He blinked softly at the small amount of light from the sun at his window, then smiled and rubbed his eyes. He jolted when he heard a suddenly loud noise.  
  
("And I can be the one to tell you that I've held this back for too long.")  
  
Carter listened an acoustic guitar turn electric as he woke up enough to realize that the sound was blaring from his own clock radio.  
  
("And my heart aches... these feelings I've held inside for you.")  
  
He rolled over, his face buried in his pillow, to shut off his alarm. The music stopped, and his arm fell off the night stand. He knew that it was nine o'clock, he didn't need big red numbers to remind him. It was a Saturday that he would have to spend at work, but that didn't bother him in the slightest. He had gotten a full night's sleep. Carter had stayed in the ER with Abby the night she was under observation, and had a few restless nights since then. He didn't know why. All he did know was that he had slept deeply the entire night, and that it was definitely a good thing.  
  
Carter stretched, then slowly made his way out of bed and to his closet, for he had predetermined what he was going to wear the night before. He had a good feeling about the short term future of his day. But once more, he did not know why.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
There Abby sat, her legs curled under her on her couch, watching the morning news (which was somewhat fatally, yet unsurprisingly boring). She had the remote on the arm of the couch, a coffee-filled mug in one hand, and a nearly full Cheez-It box on the coffee table. It was about nine thirty the newsroom's clock told her, and she had been up since about seven o'clock to take a shower and get dressed. This was far too much time, but she had moved slowly. She didn't start her shift for another hour yet.  
  
"Are they trying to bore us to death?" she asked the television. She then set down her coffee and took the remote and Cheez-It box. She didn't really want the little cheese crackers, but there was really nothing else that had interested her. She flipped through the channels, trying to find something... anything... to take her out of her misery that was boredom. The channels changed quickly, but Abby could still tell what she was seeing. It seemed as though the television was ridiculing her with irony. She slowed down her channel-flipping, in hopes of finding something. Everything she saw seemed to pertain to her. She slowed down again. With every channel, she thought about something. That something soon turned into a someone. A co-worker. A friend. Carter. It was just a bit eerie to her how televisions seem to be psychic. She changed the channel again, then stopped. She wasn't listening, only watching. Two people, a man and a woman, were conversing.  
  
"Oh stop it," she told her television. It seemed to be staring at her.  
  
The two people stared at each other.  
  
"Oh come on!" she whined to the screen. She was mad at the television now, so she did the most childish thing she could think of. She threw a Cheez- It. It landed just a few inches short of the screen.  
  
Abby looked at her right hand in an odd amusement, soaking in the fact that she had just flung an orange cracker at her television screen. She laughed lightly. It was fun.  
  
She watched as the two people stared into each other's eyes, then whipped another cracker. This time, it made it to the screen, then broke into little bits and pieces of orange debris. She laughed again.  
  
The actors walked toward each other, smiling.  
  
Another Cheez-It rocketed to the screen. 'Not fair, I only have crackers!' she thought.  
  
"Don't even..." she told the actors, who obviously couldn't hear her.  
  
The music kicked in as the two locked lips... it was a little more than a stage kiss, and Abby lost it... just for a few seconds, but a few seconds was time enough for what came next.  
  
The red box went flying. It spun in the air as the orange pieces flew out and rained down on the television. It was raining Cheez-Its.  
  
Abby watched in a shocked expression as the crackers landed. She was silent.  
  
"Whoa."  
  
Then she laughed once more as she went to her vacuum to clean the now lying objects that were strewn across her room.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
It wasn't until about quarter of ten that Carter was rushing around when he remembered that his shift started at ten thirty. He was only a half- hour off by thinking he started at ten o'clock sharp, but he was okay by that. He had another short amount of time to himself... but what to do with it?  
  
Carter fumbled with his coat as he went downstairs and out the door of his apartment building. It was a bit warmer than the previous days, but not by much. He stood outside, watching his breath steam in front of him. He then decided he was going to go to where he had parked his Jeep when he heard a slight crunching sound. He looked down to see what he had stepped on... snow. There wasn't much of it, but it was there. When Carter got to the door of his Jeep (which was now much easier because there was no ice to slip on), he reached into his pocket, where miraculously, his keys still were. He unlocked the door, opened it quickly, and sat as he slammed the door next to him. He put the key in the ignition quickly and turned it. Cool air shot out of the vents, but by the time it got to his face, it had warmed. He smiled at the nice little feature. He put the Jeep in gear and drove until he reached the third big intersection in the road.  
  
"Hmm." Short and sweet. That was all he said to the intersection before turning onto a different road than normal. It was somewhat of a small road, and doubled as his shortcut to the El. He was feeling lucky.  
  
At the train station, crowds of people flocked to the ten o'clock platform. Carter joined a small crowd near what was going to be the back of the train. He glanced at his watch. There would be a two-minute lapsing of time until the El would come into the station. He stood for a little while, picking up pieces of unwanted information from other conversations. With what he got, he could make up a fun little story. Simply to amuse himself, he tuned in the conversation to his direct left, front, and direct right, and he got an odd combination. To further amuse himself, he put the general ideas of each conversation together to make a rather uninviting mental picture. It turned out to be something to the air of a Sheepdog getting neutered with a side of a buzz cut at the local laundromat (which, by the way, had a defective dryer.). He wiped the image away and decided to amuse himself with the odd-looking people at the nearest waiting area.  
  
There was nothing for poor, childish Carter to look at. That was, until, he saw a familiar figure waving at him with a familiar hand.  
  
"Hey, Abby!" he yelled across the station. The three conversing groups (plus a few more) turned to look at him (like HE was the nutsy one).  
  
Abby's face turned a hue of red. "Hey, Carter!" she called back, but was cut off by the sound of the El pulling in.  
  
As the doors parted, Carter struggled to keep his footing as he shoved with the rest of the crowd. Once he was successfully on the train, he didn't bother to find a seat. He was too occupied with finding Abby. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't in the last car like he had thought. He had somehow been pushed to the side and wound up on a completely different car. Abby, however, was still in the back.  
  
"Oh," he whined. More people looked at him as though he were a lost and complaining child. Carter smiled sheepishly at these people, then, with some sort of a miracle, found a seat. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes to the vibrating of the window.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
The El pulled into the station in the heart of the hectic part of Chicago (though there are many), waking Carter from his doze. By now his head was slumped to the left and the strap to his bag was around his waist rather than his shoulder. He blinked at the light, then rose from his seat, hoping that no one had been watching him while he slept. This was a bit of paranoia kicking in on his part. As he began to walk away, he stumbled and fell forward, grabbing at the nearest metal pole. He broke his own fall, then looked down. His bag had fallen around his ankles and was now wrapped around them. He sat back down and undid the bag, feeling more eyes lay upon him as he did so.  
  
Carter rushed out the door, shoving and apologizing to a few people. He looked around. He was obviously right behind Abby. He ran to the staircase that led to the sidewalk and into the County streets. Carter took another look around. Still no Abby. At the pace he was going, he surely could have caught up to her... or passed her. So he decided to wait. He was obviously right in front of Abby. He waited some more. Nothing. No sign of Abby. Carter turned his wrist then looked at his watch. He had a few minutes. He slowed down his pace and just walked. He was watching the ground for ice, and there seemed to be none. This was a good sign for him. Trudging along through the inch or so of fresh snow that was left on the sidewalk, Carter found himself strangely in a good mood. So he hummed.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
The figure of a trudging Carter, dragging his soggy feet, staring at the ground, came striding into the ER. It was a peculiar sight however, for he looked extremely downtrodden, but oddly, he had a smile wiped across his face and he was singing to himself the song he had heard on the radio earlier. He had forgotten that he had only heard the song once or twice, but he somehow managed to remember the lyrics.  
  
"Carter!" Mark called to him.  
  
"H-hey!" Carter called back, displaying a smile and a laugh.  
  
"What's wrong, kind of? You uh, right?" Mark asked in general.  
  
"Yea," Carter answered wholeheartedly and misunderstanding the question slightly. "I'm great. I slept last night."  
  
"You look it," Mark commented with a smile.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Carter got another greeting as he continued his journey to the lockers. It was Jing-Mei.  
  
"Hey Carter you look... well, you don't look like hell," she said.  
  
"Uh, thanks. I guess," Carter responded humorously.  
  
"I'm kidding. You look... awake! Now isn't that a sight for sore eyes."  
  
"Yea. I slept really great last night. It was nice!" Carter said almost in an eighties high school voice.  
  
"Glad to hear it," she said with meaning.  
  
"Glad to live it," Carter admitted, then entered the locker room.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Hey Carter, there's a fourteen-year-old in curtain three waiting for you," Yosh said, breaking Carter from a daze. He was still looking for Abby. He had seen her, but only for a few seconds, and they had no chance to talk.  
  
"Oh, thanks Yosh," Carter said gratefully. He then headed down the hall.  
  
Checking the chart, Carter walked to curtain three where he found a dark blonde, green-eyed, fourteen-year-old girl looking at him. He hesitated slightly, then walked in.  
  
"Hi, my name's Doctor John Carter. So, what happened to you?" he asked, just to start a conversation.  
  
"Um, it's actually kind of embarrassing," she admitted.  
  
"Well, you're going to have to tell me sooner or later... Marie," Carter informed her, looking at the chart still.  
  
"Okay. You really, really want the truth?"  
  
Carter nodded.  
  
Marie sighed. "Okay, I was at the top of this flight of steps, about to go down and go home from school with my friends, right? When out of no where, I just lose my balance and WHOOSH! Down I went. It was really... Ow! Cool it, Long Duck Tong," she said, interrupting herself and looking at Yosh, who was amused. "Oh God, I'm REALLY sorry. I didn't mean that, it's just that, well... you remind me of, oh forget it."  
  
"That's all right," Yosh said understandingly as he wrapped her arm in an ACE bandage.  
  
"So anyway," she finished, "I fell down a flight of steps for no apparent reason."  
  
"No dizziness?" Carter asked.  
  
"Nope."  
  
"All right, I know this is kind of an annoying question, but are you on any kind of drugs?"  
  
"What?" she asked, looking offended, but only slightly. "No! Never! Only, uh... ffff..."  
  
"It starts with an 'F'?" Carter asked, afraid to death that the next letter would be something like 'E'.  
  
"Yea, fff... feh, feh..."  
  
"F-E-N?" Carter asked nervously. 'Here it comes,' he thought. 'Fentanyl.' Why he thought that, he had no clue. It was completely outrageous and impossible for a fourteen-year-old to get her hands on something like that.  
  
"Feh, Fexofenadine! That's it!"  
  
Carter sighed in relief. "Oh, okay. Allergies?"  
  
"Horribly."  
  
"Anything else?" Carter asked, still a little bit shaken.  
  
"Uh, no. Nope," Marie said quickly.  
  
Carter wasn't convinced anymore. "Yosh? Could you get a, uh, CBC and a tox screen? Wipe out any traces of Fexofenadine?"  
  
"Sure," Yosh said with a smile, then left.  
  
"You don't believe me?" she asked. Carter looked at her. "I know what those things mean. I'm not stupid. Straight A's. I may be clumsy, but I'm definitely not stupid. And I'm NOT a druggie. I don't know why anyone would be."  
  
Carter knew he was going to flush red if he didn't get out of there. "Standard procedure," he mumbled, then turned around.  
  
"Yep," Marie said behind him. "Oh, and Doctor Carter?"  
  
"Yea," Carter said, turning around.  
  
"Cool hair."  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Marie rolled over in her sleep, then woke to an audible click. She had felt her free right hand hit something, but she didn't know what it was. She looked to her hand.  
  
"Oh crap." She looked at the call button her hand had smacked, then looked in embarrassment at the entering nurse.  
  
"Is something the matter?" she asked.  
  
"Whoops, sorry, uh... Abby," Marie apologized, squinting at the nametag.  
  
"Oh, that's all right. Things happen. You need anything while I'm here?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Okay," Abby said, turning to leave.  
  
"Uh, are you busy?" Marie said after her.  
  
"I was doing rounds, but I'm done now," Abby told her.  
  
"Oh, well if you're busy, forget it."  
  
"No, no. It's okay, what do you need?" Abby wanted to help.  
  
"Nothing, it's just really lonely in here. This room is kind of creepy. Just a creepy air to it, that's all," she said, looking around.  
  
"Welcome to curtain three. So, what's your name?"  
  
"My name's Marie. I fell down the steps." This time she said it with pride.  
  
"Oh boy, that sounds fun. So, uh, how old are you?"  
  
"I'm fourteen. And I'll be celebrating my next birthday by the time those tests get back."  
  
"I'm sorry it's taking so long," Abby apologized.  
  
"No, literally. My birthday is in..." she looked at the clock. "Thirteen minutes."  
  
"Well, happy birthday."  
  
"Thanks. Way to spend a birthday, huh?" There was a minute or so of silence as Marie surveyed the room. "So, what happened?"  
  
"What?" Abby asked, perplexed.  
  
"Something happened in this room, I can tell. That doctor was hesitant on coming in here."  
  
"Who was it?" Abby asked.  
  
"Uh, Carter," she said, not realizing that she had practically used his real name with no doctor preference. "Are you guys friends?"  
  
"Oh, yes." Abby said, genuinely interested.  
  
"So what happened?"  
  
"Oh, uh, that's not really my place to say," Abby said, somewhat gravely.  
  
"Well, I'm going to be here a while. I'd like to know, even if it is something really odd." Marie smiled at her.  
  
"Are you sure? It's pretty gruesome. I'm not sure you want to know."  
  
"I'm sure a scary story can't be worse than seeing your world turn a complete three hundred and sixty degrees three times in less than thirty seconds."  
  
"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Abby warned her.  
  
"I'm ready," Marie said, more interested than ever.  
  
"Well, that guy, Doctor Carter..."  
  
"... the one with the cool hair..."  
  
"... Yes, that one. He uh, had an incident in this room. He was, he had, he had a brush with uh..."  
  
"Death? That the word?" She was whispering.  
  
"Yes. Death would be the word." Abby found that she could barely say it.  
  
"How so?" She continued to whisper.  
  
"A knife. It was Valentine's Day. We were going to cut the cake. No one knew. It was terrible."  
  
Marie looked at her sympathetically. "I'm so sorry. That's not that long ago. It sounds really bad. Was anyone else hurt?"  
  
Abby looked to the other side of the bed, but Marie didn't notice why yet.  
  
"There was someone else, wasn't there? I can tell." Marie knew.  
  
"Yes." She figured she shouldn't try to diverge Marie's attention. "Her name was Lucy. She was a med student here. She uh..."  
  
"Was brushed too hard?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I won't say anything."  
  
"It would probably be best not to," Abby advised.  
  
"Thanks. Oh, there he is, right over there!" Marie said, pointing out the window of the door.  
  
Abby's pager conveniently went off. "Oh no," she said. "I've been trying to talk to him all day."  
  
"Good luck."  
  
Carter walked into the room just then, and looked at the odd couple.  
  
"Enjoying yourselves?"  
  
"Yes," they said in unison.  
  
"Sorry Carter, I have to go. My pager..." Abby started.  
  
"Okay, talk to you later then." Abby then left, and Carter turned to Marie. "Your tests were negative. I'm sorry I ever doubted you."  
  
"I know, I'm not a convincing person, unfortunately. And I'm really, really sorry, too."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Whoops." Marie slapped herself on the head for thinking of the previous subject. She then looked to the other side of her bed, away from Carter, and a sudden shock went fleeting through her. She assumed that that was Lucy's side of the bed, and that where Doctor Carter now stood was his side. She hadn't realized that a somewhat terrified look had swiped over her face.  
  
"You know," Carter whispered.  
  
Marie only nodded. She was too far into her shocked emotion to speak. It had sunken in. She only stared at Carter. Carter sat down next to her on the bed. "I can't believe it. It's just, oh God." She was now looking at her feet. She then turned back to Carter. "But I am really sorry to hear it. Really. It's just, weird to think... that..." She stopped talking.  
  
"It's okay, really," Carter said in a comforting way.  
  
Marie looked warily around the room. Carter moved closer to her and put an arm around her. He was about to suggest that she move, but Marie thought of that first. "I'm staying here, no need to hassle yourself."  
  
"You sure?" Carter was concerned about what must be running through her mind.  
  
"Yea. Could you just, uh, stay here for another minute or so?"  
  
Carter smiled. "Sure."  
  
Marie smiled back. "Thanks. You're a really good doctor, you know that Doctor Carter?"  
  
"Thanks. You can call me Carter, Abby does."  
  
"Thanks Carter."  
  
Carter felt suddenly happy from that small compliment, and a bit surprised to think that Abby felt that she should tell his patient about what had happened. He suddenly realized how often people had really thought about it. He then remembered back to a few minutes ago. "Hey, you have cool hair, too."  
  
Marie laughed a little. "Not bad for a fight with gravity, huh? Thanks." She was quiet for a little bit. "I'm sorry, but I have to say something. You two would make a good couple. You seem to get along really well."  
  
"Who, me and Doctor Lockheart?"  
  
"Yea, you and Abby."  
  
They smiled to each other, but Carter wasn't sure exactly which emotion he was trying to express. This was strange. Everyone saw it, but it seemed like Abby didn't. He was out of the loop, the infinite loop that he had started.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Just a few minutes after Marie had fallen asleep next to Carter, who had taken it upon himself to stay so long, he quietly rose and left the room, muting the door behind him. When he stepped out, he looked back in to make sure his quiet efforts had succeeded. They had.  
  
Then his mind switched to something completely different, and anyone taking a wild guess knew what it was. Of course, he had to talk to someone about his feelings, but there was no one to talk to. Abby was insanely on call, as was Mark. Jing-Mei had only been in for a bit to do some paperwork, and there was no way in hell he was going to talk to Kerry. He needed somebody. He needed a guy, a friend, a mentor...  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
... "Doctor Benton?" Carter said, shifting his eyes around the hall. "Doctor Benton?" It was eerily quiet in the OR. The recovery room seemed like a good place to go. There was a higher presence rate in there.  
  
Carter opened the door quietly, as not to disturb anyone. There was one person who appeared to be awake. It was an older man, maybe in his sixties, Carter guessed.  
  
"Are you looking for somebody, young man?" he asked courteously.  
  
"Uh, yes I am," Carter whispered, hinting for him to do the same.  
  
"Sorry," the man whispered.  
  
"That's okay, they're all loaded on morphine. But let's keep it down anyway."  
  
The man laughed a near silent laugh. "Who are you looking for?" he asked lightly.  
  
"Do you know a Doctor Benton?"  
  
"The tall man with the goatee?"  
  
Carter smiled, his front teeth showing. "Yea, that's him."  
  
"He went that-a-way," the man said, pointing with his thumb to the direction behind him. "Out the door."  
  
"Thanks. You should probably get some sleep," Carter suggested in return.  
  
"Check. More than enough in a recovery room. I got enough sleep to make the world happy."  
  
"Never hurts to get them overjoyed," Carter joked.  
  
"It's not hurting me." The man then smiled at him. "I guess I'll do as the doctor says," he then sighed.  
  
"Good idea. Sweet dreams," Carter said jokingly.  
  
"Yea, I bet. Hope you find him."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Carter turned away then stepped out the door, muting it as he had for just about every door he had encountered so far. He didn't get too far down the hall when he found the man he was looking for, sitting in an empty room at a desk that wasn't his (or anyone else's for that matter).  
  
"Hey, Doctor Benton."  
  
"Hey, Carter," Peter said, looking at Carter.  
  
"What are you doing?" Carter mused.  
  
"Waiting out my break, why?"  
  
"I was wondering if I could talk to you about something... something personal. It's a little bit of a problem I've been having."  
  
Peter leaned forward, concerned. "Sure, what's the matter?"  
  
"Well, I'm sure you've heard the rumors, and, well, they're all true. Or at least the ones I know about."  
  
Peter nodded in comprehension. "And?"  
  
"Well, it just that, I don't think I know how to talk to women. I can't seem to get through the skull, you know?"  
  
"So you're asking me for advice?" Peter said, genuinely confused.  
  
"Yea, well, it seems like you and Cleo have been hitting it off pretty nicely... that and you're the only one who's not busy." ("We all know what comes after the jazz club!")  
  
"Oh, thanks for the gratuity, Carter."  
  
"Wait, you didn't let me finish!"  
  
"Sorry, what is it?"  
  
Carter looked at Peter. "It's just that, I know I can depend on you. I know it. And uh, I just think that you're a good person to talk to." There was a small moment of silence. "Anyway, I just want to know, what's your perspective on this: The rumors are true, and I need a way for Abby to catch up. She's a little... behind. I've made a big mess out of this."  
  
"I've noticed," Peter started. "Well, since she likes you just as much as you do her-"  
  
"What?" Carter said with a mix of confusion, surprise, and excitement.  
  
"What? I know the rumors, and I know all of them. Wait, you mean to tell me that you... didn't know that?"  
  
"No." Carter smiled at the ground, then at Benton. "You have just made my day. Thanks."  
  
Carter rose, then left the room, shaking his head and laughing in a gracious disbelief.  
  
"But what about my advice for you?" Benton called after him, but Carter didn't hear. "Well, that was easy," he told himself. He looked out the door, then saw Carter watching his feet and talking to himself relentlessly. He laughed and shook his head. He found it amazing that Carter had had no idea. On the other point of view, Carter now knew a certain little secret about a certain Abby (God knows how that one circulated the ER), but she didn't know about Carter's dilemma. He found this amazing. It was completely astounding to him how unobservant and stupid people could be.  
  
"I guess I'm just a little... behind." Just a little.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*: 


	13. Leap Of Faith

:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
A/N: I know, I know. It's getting long. Sorry I made you guys wait so long. I just want to point out that I placed Jerry into this chapter, and whether he's there or not during this time frame (I am naming this story's setting as Season 6-A because it is so conveniently placed before S 7 and S 6), I don't really care. That's all. Read on, and enjoy! (You can review, too!)  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
CHAPTER THIRTEEN  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter nearly fell running down the steps, which would have been disastrous. Woohoo, Carter tries to make a confusing situation perfect... but he falls down the steps instead! He could just see the headlines! Flashing lights! But he only thought about that for a second, a quick second that was eradicated when he spotted Yosh.  
  
"Yosh!" Carter yelled to him. Yosh raised his head. "Yosh!"  
  
"Calm down Carter, what's wrong?" He looked concerned.  
  
"Where's Abby? I've got to find Abby... it's REALLY important... REALLY IMPORTANT!" he pleaded with a smile on his face.  
  
"She's in a trauma, you'll have to wait." He looked frustrated for a second. He obviously knew what was going on. He smiled at Carter. "You," was all he could say.  
  
Carter laughed a bit. "Yea, me. Wait, no one paged me," he realized.  
  
"You've got the next one. ETA... now."  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Name?"  
  
"He told us that it was Jeremy."  
  
"Jeremy, I'm Doctor Carter, can you tell me what happened?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Yes you do."  
  
Carter's eyes met with those of the man deemed Jeremy. He knew well that he was staring right through him and to the truth when the air of fake helplessness turned to one of nervous fear.  
  
"We were playing chicken."  
  
Carter couldn't speak. The stupidity of the idea of two men, apparently friends, driving head on toward each other to see who would quick swerve out of the way in terror paralyzed his vocality.  
  
"We never hit, we just both..."  
  
"Chickened out?" Carter suggested.  
  
"Yea. We each went off the side of the road. How's my friend?" Jeremy tried to look into the adjacent trauma room when Chen walked through, but the door slammed on his hopes.  
  
"We don't know yet. But you're damn lucky, you know that? You're going to get away. Maybe not walking, but you'll get away."  
  
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't want to do it! I just wanted to play a game!" His pleading was unbearable as it was annoying.  
  
"Some game," Carter scoffed.  
  
"I'm sorry!"  
  
Carter went to the door between the two trauma rooms. He put a blood- soaked, gloved hand on the door and pulled it toward himself, then turned and looked Jeremy straight into his teary, scared, brown eyes.  
  
"Tell him."  
  
Jeremy froze.  
  
"Now."  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Having been tormented with two different trauma teams rattling commands into his ears, Carter grew to the point of utter exhaustion. He slumped himself into a chair in the lounge, heaving a long, exasperated sigh. Something that had been nagging in the back of his mind suddenly caught up with him then, making him jump up and run out the door.  
  
"Yosh!" he called once more down the hallway.  
  
"She's on break."  
  
Carter slouched in dismay. "Do you know where she wen........."  
  
"No," Yosh said, cutting him off. "I saw her at the end of the trauma, but I didn't notice where she went. Sorry, Carter." He had no attitude, just the same frustration.  
  
Carter had nothing to do but display a boyish frown. "The Lip" began to resurface after many years of surpressing the childish urge to bring its inevitable power into play. Yosh did not, however, notice the all-powerful "Lip".  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"All right, now I'm getting pissed," Carter thought aloud as he stood in front of his locker. He had not the energy to search for Abby, nor did he have the time when he was not on a break. He then got an idea. It was an idea of high school creativity, but he figured that it would work.  
  
Ruffling through a small stash of papers that had sunken to the abyss that was the bottom of his locker, Carter found what could scarcely be named a notebook. The spiral was about a quarter of the way ripped out of the binding and streched into a long bar of wire, the corners of the cover bent, and half the pages were long gone, leaving meek, wrinkled leaves of paper to complement the poor mistake for a notebook. Despite how aged and decrepit the book was, he fussed with the cover until it gave under his force and he folded it around the back of the book. On the shelf of his locker he spotted a pen. It was a clear-barreled pen with black ink and read "Fexofenadine HCI" on the clip. He would have given a small, unenthused laugh had he seen this. He hastily turned the pen around and clicked it against his leg as he found a chair in the corner.  
  
To add to the ensemble of the notebook, he shredded a page out as gingerly as he could manage, then leaned against the wall with the pen figuratively glued to the sorry leaf of crumpled, lined paper. With as much haste and joy as he had shown when he had come booking down the steps, he scratched a message onto the paper:  
  
"Hopefully Yosh will get this to you......... Abby, I haven't seen you all day......... there is something I must talk to you about. It is very serious........."  
  
Looking at the word he had just written, he raised an eyebrow. He scribbled.  
  
"It is very important," he said as he wrote. He looked at the sentence, now pleased. He continued to write:  
  
"My shift ends at 12 tonight, come to the roof at 12:30. I'll be there at quarter after. Please humor me and come, if I don't see you before the end of the day. Thanks a lot. -Carter"  
  
As he folded (crumpled) the letter (memo), he couldn't help but laugh (in embarassment) at how youthful (Old-School) this apprehension would seem to Abby, but despite all this, he ran the letter to the desk.  
  
"Yosh!" he yelled yet again.  
  
"Jerry," was the reply.  
  
"Jerry!" Carter said with a smile.  
  
"Now you've got the idea, Carter."  
  
"Hey, do you see Abby at all?"  
  
"Sometimes, why?"  
  
"Well, if you do see her, could you give her this?" he asked, handing him the giant, dry spitball.  
  
"Well happy birthday, that'll get her," Jerry said, making fun of Carter.  
  
"Just do it, please."  
  
"And if I don't see her?"  
  
"Give it to Yosh. You'll see him."  
  
"Well, why don't you just give it to her?"  
  
"Because, your luck combined is better than mine," Carter said with a sudden realization that he was, in fact, not having much luck at all. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hibernate in the lounge so that Abby can show." He flashed a smile then went to his destination.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
It had been about an hour since Carter had last had something to occupy himself with, and even now there was still nothing. And then came a knock......... soft, but loud enough to wake him out of his daydream that was nothing more than staring out the window of the lounge (had hadn't moved from his chair in the corner) at the drifting snowflakes and accumulating crystals of ice. He seemed to have watched the icicles that dripped from the roof as they grew, meaning he had obviously been there longer than he had thought. It was in a way mesmorizing as it was blinding when the ambulance lights flashed through them.  
  
"Hey Carter, the chicken man slipped," Yosh said slowly.  
  
"You mean Jeremy's friend?" he asked, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead.  
  
Yosh only nodded.  
  
"How long is he going to be out?" Carter asked.  
  
"Mark couldn't tell......... can we ever tell?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
Carter rose stiffly from the folding chair, his back paining him slightly, to go break the news to the man's little chicken-playing friend Jeremy.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
Carter took a deep breath as he opened the door to curtain three, ready to go telling. He nodded to Marie as he passed. She smiled back. As he rounded the curtain on the other half of the room, the college-aged man perked up a bit.  
  
"How's Mike?" he asked, his voice rasping slightly.  
  
Carter sighed breathily as Jeremy leaned back and frowned.  
  
"What happened? Is he okay?" Jeremy asked again, posing his question different ways and wrinkling his brow.  
  
"He's okay, but uh........." Carter seated himself on a visitor's chair next to a table that held one small flower in a plastic cup along with a youthful and handwritten card. He looked at in in a small amusement.  
  
"My niece made that," he pointed out, noting Carter's interest. "My brother was always the older, responsible, respectible type."  
  
"Yea. Uh, as hard as we tried to prevent this, Mike slipped into unconsciousness again......... and we can't bring him to this time."  
  
"Are you saying he's not waking up?"  
  
"Yes. We just have to wait it out. That's all we can do right now," Carter said, looking sympathetically into Jeremy's fear stricken eyes. The sympathy then changed to firmness. "But I guess you've both learned something."  
  
"I know......... Don't say it. I've been going crazy over the thought of it, you know? Why I did it, why he thought of it, why I agreed, what the hell was wrong with me......... I know." He listed his thoughts.  
  
"I'm hoping the best though, you do know that."  
  
"Thanks. Me too." Jeremy looked to his left, away from Carter's glance.  
  
Carter was going to recommend that he get some sleep, but he figured Mike was doing enough of that for the both of them. He stood and went to Marie's curtain.  
  
"Tough day?" she asked, sympathizing with him.  
  
"Yea. Very. Do you need anyting?"  
  
"No. It's not just about that Jeremy guy, is it?" she quizzed him, noticing his lack of attention.  
  
"You're good." He couldn't help but laugh a little.  
  
"It's about that girl......... Doctor Lockheart."  
  
"Abby? Well I........."  
  
"There's no hiding it from me," Marie said cleverly. "Unfortunately for you, I am very good at telling these things. My friends hate it. I love it."  
  
"Right again. Well, let's see if I can catch up with her now."  
  
"Good luck, but you know you'll see her when you least expect it."  
  
"Probably."  
  
"No, you will. So expect it."  
  
Carter smiled and looked at the girl, a fourteen-year-old love psychic it seemed, but he knew that it had to be women's intuition taking over in the teen years.  
  
"I will. Thanks."  
  
"Sure thing. Have a nice night," she said invitingly.  
  
"You too."  
  
Carter walked out of the room, now a little paranoid that Abby could possibly round the next corner at any moment. He stopped in front of the window outside curtain three to see his reflection in the blinds, then pushed some of his hair out of the way. He looked again, spruced it some more, then left. Inside the room, Marie, seeing his shadow, could not keep herself from laughing lightly at the thought of a doctor (who had to be at least twice her own age, she figured) being so very like someone she would normally be friends with......... in school. Little had Carter known that anyone had noticed him fixing his hair in a sorry reflection of himself. Had he known this, he probably would have waited for a mirror, but that high-school antic kept taking over. Yes, the letter (memo) was definitely an underaged idea. But love was love......... and these loopholes were really beginning to piss him off.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Can we please keep the littering to a minimum?" Weaver bellowed at the front desk. "This is a prime example of why we have trash cans!" she added, swiping a pile of papers including fixed pictures undoubtedly from an online source from the fax tray into a nearby trash can. "This is also why our fax machines and printers are running out of ink." She picked up a leaf that she had missed. "Oh, come on......... who prints out pictures of Jack Russels in suits?"  
  
"Actually," Jerry cut in, "That's a wirehaired terrier......... in a tux," he added happily, recrumpling and putting down the note that Carter had written and he had read next to the charts.  
  
"I don't care and God forbid if it's a supermodel in a G-string, don't let it happen again!"  
  
"All right, all right!" Jerry pleaded, jumping out of her way and to the computer to cancel his next printout......... which could have resembled what Weaver had suggested judging by the look on his face.  
  
"Thank you!" Weaver said angrily, swiping more papers. She made her way to where Jerry had been standing, having noticed that he had read something and simply crumpled it and threw it so conveniently on the counter. "And please, somebody call housekeeping or something," she added, taking the paper ball with her as she walked toward a biohazard bin.  
  
Jerry hadn't turned around just yet, but anyone plotting against him could not have waited to see the look on his face......... and when he did turn around, a look did cross his face. One of terror of letting a friend down. He immediately looked under the desk. It was time to search the trash bins.  
  
:*:*:*:*:*:*:  
  
"Jerry?" a familiar voice asked about ten minutes later. "Why are you in the garbage?"  
  
He looked up from his spot. "Yosh! Am I glad to see you. I need your help. You see, Carter gave me this note to give to Abby, telling her to meet him on the roof. I promised to relay the message, but I lost it!"  
  
"So why don't you just repeat it? I mean, even I know you read it."  
  
"No I didn't," he said defensively.  
  
"Well, snooping could have been good for once. Come on, what did it say?"  
  
Jerry just went back into the trash can. Yosh looked at him hopelessly. After a sad thirty seconds or so, he joined him.  
  
"So?" Yosh asked.  
  
"Okay, okay. I read it."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Well, I didn't want you to think I was stupid, but I forgot what time it said."  
  
"You what?" 


	14. Just One Time

It was a cold and bitter air that bit at the tips of Carter's ears that night. His eyes were blinded as they wandered over the twinkling lights of the city, then they shifted to one random cardinal direction as he heard the bold cry of a tower clock chime for the last and first hour of the day. Carter became aware that he could have been imagining this when he glanced down at his watch, for it was past twelve thirty already and he had already heard the chiming that had recoiled him to reality. He feared he was losing his sanity when he could have sworn that this was the second time he had heard the tower clock. Then it hit him that the clock chimed routinely at half past the hour. He was reassured that his mental stability was all right, however, a shiver that combined the reaction to both cold air and anxiety swept down his spine.  
  
"Where is she?" he whispered, realizing at the sound of his voice just how distraught he had grown. "They couldn't have lost my note, they just couldn't have. . ."  
  
His body tensed as a gust of cool air blew his hair into his face from behind him. He heard a creak as his hand automatically went toward his hair to fix it. Knowing that his joints made no noise of the kind, he quickly continued the action, dropped his hand, and then widened his eyes.  
  
Carter whirled around to look at the rooftop door that had just swung open. No one except for a struggling Kerry Weaver, dressed solely in her work outfit and in no coat, stepped onto the roof.  
  
"Hey, Carter. . . aren't you cold?" she asked, sounding slightly out of breath from having crutched her way up the stairs.  
  
"Somewhat, yea. . . no big deal. . . I was just, uh, waiting for someone, that's all."  
  
"Mind if I join you for a second?"  
  
"Erm. . . sure," Carter said in a mock-invitational voice.  
  
"I won't stay long, just thought I'd give this to you. . . sorry I read it, but uh, I don't know if it ever got to anyone," Kerry said as she pulled a ball of paper out of her pocket.  
  
Carter eyed the paper in amazement. "You of all people," he started, "how did you get this?"  
  
"Never mind that. . . but I didn't see her, I'm sorry," she said regretfully as she turned to leave.  
  
"Don't be sorry, Kerry," Carter pleaded slightly after her, then she turned around and nodded that she had heard him and continued on her way.  
  
After the door had creaked shut again, Carter opened his note and read it, a nervous twinge taking over his right hand as he held it. How stupid it sounded to him now. . . "meet me at twelve thirty. . . it's important. . ." he could hardly soak in that this was even his handwriting.  
  
All along he had had a foreboding feeling that the note would never make it to Abby on time. He thought himself and idiot for having hope in it and blamed himself for not having said anything to her on his own. He had not seen her, but he could have looked, right? Rather than sitting there writing and trying to be sly, he could have just gotten his ass out of the chair and looked for her! Why did he even itry/i to think that plan would succeed?  
  
"Yea well," he breathed, then continued to stare at a flashing sign advertising a movie that was supposedly a film on a dramatic topic. How on earth watching someone else's hardships could earn a form of art "stars" was beyond Carter. He literally shook this thought from his mind and tried to stop staring at the lights by letting his eyelids slide closed and by letting his body rest loosely on the ledge in front of him. The hand that had grasped the paper hung over the edge, and his entire arm lost all strength as he inhaled deeply and let the paper float to the ground below. Maybe there she'd find it. He could just imagine Abby finding the paper, but it was all too vivid and surreal. As a lump rose in his throat, he wished aloud for a better chance.  
  
"For once I'd like things to go right. . . just once!" He then sniffed in the same bitter air that nipped ferociously now at his ears. "All I ask is one time. . . it's not that hard. . . is it?" Carter changed his watery gaze to the stars. There was not a cloud in the sky, and at least that had the power to cause a small smile to emerge on his face. "I'll bet you're one lucky man, Orion," he said as he spotted the constellation's belt.  
  
Keeping his eyes on the dark, oblivious night sky, Carter sat on the ground with his back to the ledge, yawning. His eyelids dropped slowly over his dark, teary, brown eyes, and he drifted slightly to sleep. The air was windless where he sat, crouched in the corner.  
  
:::::::::  
  
"Carter," a voice called from a distant somewhere, "Carter!"  
  
He awoke to a blurred face in front of him, but he was no longer cold. He looked around and saw that he was still on the roof. Blinking thrice tightly, he focused on the figure in front of him.  
  
"Abby!" he nearly said as he realized just who was kneeling in front of him. She had a gloveless hand on his cheek.   
  
"You're freezing! Are you all right?" she questioned anxiously.  
  
"Yea, I'm fine," he tried to say, but his voice was a nearly inaudible whisper. "Listen, I have something to tell you. . ." he started, but he was interrupted by Abby.  
  
"I found him, Mark. He's right here," Abby called over her shoulder.  
  
Carter's heart plummeted slightly, for he had hoped to be alone with her. Mark merely nodded and stepped off to the side. Then Carter's heart sank further down into his chest when Yosh and Jerry appeared behind Abby.  
  
"Sorry," said Jerry. Carter had a vague idea of what Jerry was referring to when he looked at Yosh, who was evading any eye contact with Carter. Carter had not realized that he was the subject of a wild goose chase.  
  
"Eh. . . Abby, can I talk to you for a minute?" It was hard to speak loudly. "I have to tell you something." Abby leaned in close as to hear Carter better, as did everyone else. "Would you all be so kind as to let me have a private conversation?"  
  
"It's not like we don't know what you're going to say," Mark interjected with a touch of hostility in his voice.  
  
"Yea really, we were in charge of this whole 'note' thing, anyway," Jerry added hastily. Carter could not believe his tone.  
  
"And I don't know why you had to drag me into this at all!" Yosh exclaimed.  
  
Carter was taken aback, and his world came crashing down on him. He wanted to rely on himself now, but now was too late of a time. "But I want to do this. . ."  
  
"Yourself?" He found, to his horror, that Abby had finished this sentence. "I'm sure."   
  
As she backed away, a fear and feeling of unfathomable hopelessness made his soul seem to leave him as though he were a human sieve of emotion. He felt limp and light and empty as he slumped helplessly onto his right side. His vision blurred, and as he lay there, no one seemed to care. He yelled out for help as he began to shiver uncontrollably, but his view darkened and everything floated away from him as quickly as it had come when he was roused out of sleep by Abby in the first place.  
  
"I did, I really did! It's all I wanted to do," he pleaded, his last bit of hope leaving him. "It's all I needed to do, it's all I wanted, forgive me! Please, Abby! Everyone, please, listen. . ."  
  
:::::::::  
  
"Carter?" a voice whispered from a distant somewhere. "Carter!" it called, a bit louder and more urgently.  
  
He had no motivation to rise save for the sound of the voice. It always inevitably took him from sleep.  
  
"It's all I wanted, forgive me, forgive me," Carter managed. The resonant sound of his voice scared him at first, causing his eyes to shoot open again. His view was sideways, as he had left it.  
  
"Carter, are you okay?" A warm hand scooped under his shoulder and an arm grasped around his back and he was lifted vertically again. The figure stepped back, leaving its warm hands on his shoulders.  
  
"What. . . Abby? Is it you? Am I awake?"  
  
"Yes. . . I hope so," she assured him, concern flooding her tone of voice.  
  
"Good. . . I was having a nightmare, I think, and. . . wow, that's beside the point," Carter stuttered.  
  
"What point?" she asked, then shook her head. "I've been looking for you, I wanted to talk to you but I haven't seen you all day. . ."  
  
"Wait!" Carter said, taking her aback and cutting her off in mid-conversation. "Let me explain this to you. . . I tried to write a note to you, all I wanted to do was talk to you, but I kept laying the responsibility on everyone else. . ."  
  
"I know," Abby cut in, returning the favor of interruption. "People have been asking for me all day. . . the truth is, Carter, that I've been asking for you the whole time."  
  
Carter looked her in the eyes.  
  
"Abby," he started after a few seconds of near bliss, seeing that she was ready to listen to her, "I have to tell you this. . . I - I've been dreaming of you. . . since the beginning of October, and I didn't know why, but I've tried everything. . . I've been trying to get everyone else to do everything for me. . . that's beside the point, but I have, just to confess it. . ."  
  
"Calm down. . . slower, Carter."  
  
Carter took a deep breath and started again, this time more slowly, into his monologue. "It took me a while to get used to you. . . and this. . . but after being around you, feeling the tension, I can't take it anymore. Just looking into your eyes right now, I know you feel something like it. I've watched you so much and I don't know where I've gone right and wrong, but I know something has to be right or else you wouldn't be here." He didn't know where to end.  
  
"I've seen you watching me," Abby said. "I always. . . kind of secretly hoped that, you know, you always were. I haven't dreamed of you that I know of, but I've been thinking."  
  
"About me?" Carter asked, his eyes alight with question and disbelief.  
  
"Yes, about you and you know I. . ."  
  
"Can't believe I'm saying this to you?"  
  
"Right now. . ."  
  
"Neither can I," they both said, and it was nearly harmonious. They hadn't realized until just then how deeply their gazes had gone into each other.  
  
"Tell me I'm not dreaming," Carter demanded softly.  
  
"You're not dreaming."  
  
They both laughed a little and smiled.  
  
"Good," Carter said, relieved, as he made his way to his feet. "Thanks for coming to get me. . . I'd have been a human popsicle," he laughed.  
  
"No problem," Abby said with a smile that made Carter want to photograph it in his memory. . . and he thought he did.  
  
The air brushed them coolly and Abby's teeth chattered a bit. Carter stood still. Then a gust of wind made her falter to the ledge, where Carter moved closely to keep her standing.  
  
He had come awfully close to. . .  
  
Abby stared thankfully into his eyes, noticing the cute gesture he had made to keep her from needing support from a brick ledge.   
  
"Tell me. . . what does it mean when someone can't stop thinking about another person?" she asked genuinely.  
  
"It means a lot. . . how about dreaming about another person?"  
  
"A lot."  
  
"If I'm not mistaken. . . I think I've uh, wow, this is kind of amazing to say. . ."  
  
"If I'm not mistaken," Abby whispered, "we're thinking the same thing."  
  
"I think we are," Carter said, his voice also a whisper with the wind.  
  
Carter's arms had found their own way around Abby, and she acknowledged this by putting hers around him. They seemed to have pulled each other closer together as slowly as they could, but not hesitantly.  
  
"My point is," Carter said at last, "is that I can't help but notice that. . . I've fallen in love with you."  
  
"I think I just did all over again," Abby said softly.  
  
Carter leaned down slowly toward Abby, and their eyes for once parted only to close as they kissed. They both seemed to put as much into the moment as the other did. As they parted, their eyes met again.  
  
"Yea," Carter said, nodding, "I love you."  
  
"I love you, too," Abby said, and Carter knew she meant it as much as he did.  
  
They both smiled and Carter leaned in again, as did Abby simultaneously, and they kissed once more before retreating from the bitter cold that had long since not been as bitter as when Carter had greeted it.  
  
:::::::::  
  
A/N: Well, there you have it. I hope you liked it, and if not, make suggestions, I guess. I've had a few moments like this myself over the past few months. I find now that I probably couldn't have written this chapter very accurately without knowing what it feels like, so here is a pretty genuine seen from my point of view. Thanks for dealing with the corny middle part and for dealing with the time it took to submit this, but school can be demanding, haha. Thanks for reading, and there is much hope in me that you can give some feedback, please. Thank you to J. K. Rowling for getting me in the spirit to write, thank you to Stephen King (the writing master) for actually getting me to sit myself in front of this laptop, thanks to the reviewers for making me finish this nearly sixty-paged story because sometimes my friends who read it made me feel threatened that I would be inflicted upon if I didn't finish this, and thank you to my loverboy for being my inspiration. 


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